Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett (24 November 1849 – 29 October 1924) was an English-American playwright and author. She is best known for her children's stories, in particular Little Lord Fauntleroy (published in 1885-6), A Little Princess (1905), and The Secret Garden (1911).
Frances Eliza Hodgson was born in Cheetham, near Manchester, England. After her father died in 1852, the family eventually fell on straitened circumstances and in 1865 emigrated to the United States, settling near Knoxville, Tennessee. There, Frances began writing to help earn money for the family, publishing stories in magazines from the age of 19. In 1870 her mother died and in 1872 she married Swan Burnett, who became a medical doctor after which they lived in Paris for two years where their two sons were born before returning to the US to live in Washington D.C. There she began to write novels, the first of which (That Lass o' Lowries), was published to good reviews. Little Lord Fauntleroy was published in 1886 and made her a popular writer of children's fiction, although her romantic adult novels written in the 1890s were also popular. She wrote and helped to produce stage versions of Little Lord Fauntleroy and A Little Princess.
Burnett enjoyed socializing and lived a lavish lifestyle. Beginning in the 1880s, she began to travel to England frequently and bought a home there in the 1890s where she wrote The Secret Garden. Her oldest son, Lionel, died of tuberculosis in 1892, which caused a relapse of the depression she struggled with for much of her life. She divorced Swan Burnett in 1898 and married Stephen Townsend in 1900, and divorced him in 1902. Towards the end of her life she settled in Long Island, where she died in 1924 and is buried in Roslyn Cemetery, on Long Island.
In 1936 a memorial sculpture by Bessie Potter Vonnoh was erected in her honour in Central Park's Conservatory Garden. The statue depicts her two famous Secret Garden characters, Mary and Dickon.]

Childhood in Manchester[edit source]
Frances Eliza Hodgson was born at 141 York Street, Cheetham, Manchester, Lancashire, England, the third of five children of Edwin Hodgson, an ironmonger from Doncaster in Yorkshire, and his wife Eliza Boond, from a well-to-do Manchester family. Hodgson owned a business in Deansgate, selling quality ironmongery and brass goods. The family lived comfortably, employing a maid and a nurse-maid.[1] Frances was the middle of the five Hodgson children, with two older brothers and two younger sisters.[2]
In 1852 the family moved to a more spacious home with greater access to outdoor space.[3] Barely a year later, with his wife pregnant for a fifth time, Hodgson died of a stroke, leaving the family without income. Frances was cared for by her grandmother while her mother took over running the family business. From her grandmother, who bought her books, Frances learned to love reading, in particular her first book The Flower Book which had coloured illustrations and poems. Because of their reduced income, Eliza had to give up their house and moved with her children to Seedley Grove, near Pendleton; there they lived with relatives in a home that included a large enclosed garden, in which Frances enjoyed playing.[4]
For a year Frances went to a small school run by two women, where she first saw a book about fairies. When her mother moved the family to Salford, Frances mourned the lack of flowers and gardens. Their home was located in Islington Square, adjacent to an area with severe overcrowding and poverty, that "defied description", as described by Friedrich Engels who lived in Manchester at the time.[5]
Frances had an active imagination, writing stories she made up in old notebooks. One of her favorite books was Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, and she spent many hours acting out scenes from that book.[6] Frances and her siblings were sent to be educated at The Select Seminary for Young Ladies and Gentleman, where she was described as "precocious" and "romantic".[7] She had an active social life and enjoyed telling stories to her friends and cousins; in her mother she found a good audience, although her brothers had a tendency to tease her about her stories.[8] Frances continued her education at the Select Seminary until she was aged fifteen.
Manchester was almost entirely dependent on a cotton economy which was ruined by the American Civil War.[9] In 1863 Eliza Hodgson was forced to sell their business and move the family once again to an even smaller home; at that time Frances' limited education came to an end. Eliza's brother asked the family to join him in America in Knoxville to where he had emigrated and now had a thriving dry goods store. Within the year Eliza decided to accept his offer and move the family from Manchester.[10] She sold their possessions and told Frances to burn her early writings in the fire.[9] In 1865, when Frances was sixteen, the family emigrated to the US, settling near Knoxville, Tennessee

يتيمة الاب في سن الثالثة وعاشت طفولة صعبة وماتت الام في سن الحادية والعشرين

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