“Is the spring coming?” he said. “What is it like?”…
“It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine…” from The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

“After her parents’ death, Mary Lennox, a plain, sickly, and unloved little girl, leaves her home in India to stay in her uncle’s English manor. There, thanks to a very special hidden garden and some wonderful new friends, she undergoes a physical and spiritual transformation that ultimately affects the lives of all around her.” – http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Garden-Sterling-Illustrated-Classics/dp/1402778724/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395365050&sr=1-6&keywords=the+secret+garden

Frances Hodgson Burnett was born Frances Eliza Hodgson in Manchester England on the 24th of November 1849. Like Mary in the book France also had a difficult childhood. Her mother had to work to keep the family together after her father died when she was still a young child. Her love of reading came from her Grandmother who bought her books. She treasure her first book The Flower Book which had colored illustrations and poems. For a time the family lived with relatives in Seedly Grove and there Frances enjoyed playing in the large enclosed garden. Eventually her mother moved the family to Knoxville Tennessee. France was 16 when they moved. She became a very prolific author and was more successful than both of her husbands. She loved her two sons and was devastated when her eldest son died as a young man from consumption. In the early 1880’s she read and studied Theosophy and Spiritualism and  met Louisa May Alcott. You will find these ideas and philosophies incorporated into her later fiction. She spent much of her life living in both the States and England. For a decade in the late 1890’s she lived at The Great Maytham Hall in Kent, which had  a beautiful rose garden and several lovely walled gardens. There she was able to indulge her love of flowers. And it was while living there she got the idea for the story of The Secret Garden.