This is a must-read for any Secret Garden fan. Reading the book I am recommending today is a wonderful treat. You learn more about her and even inspiration for her writing brings even more life to her writing or to any writing. This book wonderfully focuses on Burnett's life from early life and her travels to why she wrote her stories to help her family.

Before I read this biography, I did not know much about the life of Frances Hodges Burnet! I found this biography to be very intriguing and comprehensive! I also found the book to be a very balanced biography! Thus, this book is a must read for those that would like to learn more about this famous author! I recommend this for fans of the Red Comet!

This is an extensive in-depth biography of Frances Hodgson Burnett's life and offered great insight into how her life shaped her writing. There were periods that got a little tedious, as biographies can sometimes go, but I found it fascinating to learn a bit more about one of my favorite authors.

I love The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett but sadly knew nothing about her. Thanks to Ann Thwaite's Beyond the Secret Garden we get an unfiltered view of just the woman Frances was and all she accomplished.

Frances Hodgson Burnett seemed to march to the beat of her own drum. I loved to hear that she wasn't always trying to please or like everyone, but went ahead with what she envisioned. I had no idea that Burnett had such a large cannon of work or anything about her upbringing. I also loved learning that she was a mother to two sons and had to juggle it all.

I highly suggest diving into this remarkable biography and then reading some of Burnett's novels. Thank you so much to Netgalley for the read.

#AnnThwaite #BeyondtheSecretGarden #NetGalley

Thank you to Duckworth Books and Net Galley for the chance to read and review this book.
Frances Hodgson Burnett was one of my favorite childhood authors, and I still enjoy reading her books. This was a good read about her and her life. Really enjoyed it!

An interesting read. Very well researched and a good read for people who are interested in Frances' life. A little slow at time but a good read nevertheless.

Biography of Frances Hodgson Burnett. Her early life in Manchester was far more interesting than later when she went to America and her writing career took off. I wasn’t in the least interested in any of the commercial aspects of her work and consequently found it boring, repetitive and over long. Frances herself was a fascinating, many faceted person even when she was a child and was ahead of her times with her enlightened views. As for The Secret Garden, not much was said about that!

I received a free digital advance review copy from Duckworth Books via Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

If, like author Ann Thwaite, you read and re-read The Secret Garden as a child, then you'll also be captivated by Beyond the Secret Garden, Thwaite's biography of Frances Hodgson Burnett, originally published in 1974, and newly reissued in 2020. I was fascinated to learn that Burnett and her family relocated from England to Tennessee, just after the Civil War, when she was a teenager and that her original audience included adults, as "children's literature" was not yet considered a distinct category. Drawing on sources such as Burnett's unpublished letters (many of which are excerpted in the book), and material shared by Burnett's family, Thwaite recounts how Burnett established her writing career, how the various places she lived inspired her stories, and how despite, or perhaps because of challenging personal circumstances, she "tried to write more happiness into the world."

An interesting biography on the author of the Secret Garden. Didn't know much about Frances Hodgson Burnett besides that work, and that one mainly from movies. I do like the nuances of the story though, and was curious to learn more about the author. She had quite an active life, both in her social and her writing world. It is ironic that her most well known story today was not such a big hit at the time. In fact, in her obit it wasn't even mentioned. Interesting to read about the other authors at the time, and this discussion of the book world. Makes me want to read more by her, and others. The book does get a bit heavy at times, but easy enough to skim a bit. Would highly recommend this book, especially if you want to learn more about that time that influenced these stories.

Gosh, didn't Frances Hodgson Burnett write a lot - there was more of this book detailing what she wrote than there was of her life and how she had a life when she churned out so much!

Very well written, emotional story. I really loved it. The characters were created in a way you root for them, which makes a difference.
Thanks a lot to NG nad the publisher for this copy.

While the life of Mrs. Burnett is rich and fascinating, this book is ponderous and heavy. It's marred by excessively long chapters that are padded with very long and largely irrelevant quotations from her letters and diaries.

The book would be far better if, when it was originally written (this is a reprint of an out-of-print book), an editor had taken a red pencil & shortened it.

A fascinating and long awaited biography of an influential writer. Engaging, honest and vividly described - Ann Thwaite has done a wonderful job. Perfect for anyone intrigued by the life behind the creator of 'The Secret Garden.'

An interesting read although a little slow in places. For anyone expecting the book to mainly focus on The Secret Garden are in for a disappointment as there are only a couple of pages near the end where it's picked up although it can be seen where the inspiration came from for the book. In fact, it was late into her career that The Secret Garden was written and despite being so well known now was not mentioned in either her obituary or reference works of the time.

I did find the book dragged a little, repeated itself in places when it concentrated on the commercial aspects of her world plus it did jump about a bit on the timeline, but the personal bits were sympathetically and well written. Rather an amazing woman of her time having crossed the Atlantic more than 30 times dividing her time between the States and England, no mean feat in the 1800s. She also spend considerable time in Europe and Bermuda. The number of houses she lived in too was quite mind boggling for that day and age. Despite coming from a poor background she made a lot of money but was generous with it to a fault.

Worth as go as a fascinating insight to the social background of the time but probably read in chunks and don't expect the story behind The Secret Garden as a single work. In fact, she was renowned in her time as having penned Little Lord Fauntleroy, a fact that was new to me having heard of this book but never read it.

Very enjoyable to venture beyond a childhood favourite. Thoroughly enjoyed this and will purchasing for family members

This thoroughly researched biography of Frances Hodgson Burnett will be much appreciated by fans of The Secret Garden and The Little Princess. The sections of this biography that tell of Frances' time in Knoxville were particularly good. The author did a splendid job of accurately describing the people of East Tennessee and the conflicts and fallout from the Civil War. Very well done.

3.5 rounded up.

I had previously read her biography of A. A. Milne, and really enjoyed it and The Secret Garden was one of my favourite books as a child and I reread it many times, so I looked forward to this one. There isn't much about The Secret Garden in this, it's beyond, not about. The first half flew by and was really interesting, but the second half dragged a little. Much more about copywriter laws and publishing, but I learned a lot about her life I hadn't known previously; I had no idea how many times she went back and forth between England and America, I also hadn't realised just how much she's written This has made me want to re-read those childhood favourites and read more of her adult novels, particularly The Shuttle.

*Many thanks to the published and Netgalley for a copy in exchange for an honest review*

"The Secret Garden" is one of my most beloved books so when I saw this title by Ann Thwaite my heart rejoiced! Frances Hodgson Burnett was a remarkable person and author, so fascinating to read about from her first memory as a young child to her last days. She drew from both imagination and real life experiences for her creatively beautiful stories. She knew poverty and luxury and lived "the refusal to be overpowered by experience".

I really liked the mentions of other authors of the time including her friend Henry James, flamboyant Oscar Wilde and media's comparisons with Elizabeth Gaskell. "Little Lord Fauntleroy" was more successful than I realized. This book included so much new-to-me information such as her hand in the Copyright Act, relationships, personal family stories and travel. Many of her characters were based on those around her.

The author used a personal tone which I appreciate. The sheer number of poignant and touching letters exchanged between Hodgson Burnett and her family members is staggering...it's a privilege to be privy to them.

I only wish there was more information on the writing of The Secret Garden, though the title does mention "beyond".

This book will be a treasure to those who cherish the works of witty and exceptionally intelligent Frances Hodgson Burnett.

Many thanks to Duckworth Books and NetGalley for the e-book!

This was a beautifully written biography, that offered and insightful and fascinating look into the life and times of Frances Hodgson Burnett. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but did feel that it focused a little too much of the details and being completely objective, leaning towards the technical/commercial side of her life as published writer, rather than the writing, and the magic that she tried to bring into the world as an author. There was also not as much reference to The Secret Garden as you would expect from the title of this book, which was the main reason I had been drawn to this book. However, I still enjoyed it and found it offered an excellent exploration of her life and work and would recommend to anyone who is a fan of Hodgson Burnett.

Beyond the Secret Garden.

I'm not much into reading Biographies but this appealed, not only as there is a new release of a film The Secret Garden, but it was one of my favourite books as a child, but I was disappointed to find so little written about The Secret Garden. I did see that this was originally published as Waiting for the Party in 1974 and updated to coincide with the new film.

It was fascinating to read about how she dealt with publishers on both sides of the Atlantic and how copyright was a huge problem. It was also interesting to see how children's literature evolved as it's own genre, before most of these books were aimed at adults to be read to children. Certainly the language of a lot of books I read as a child, Black Beauty and What Katy Did, have much more of an adult language to them than the likes of Enid Blyton.

At times I felt the book a little dry and too detailed and almost confusing.

An amazing amount of travel by someone in those days, very driven almost to the point of manic. No wonder that she and Swan separated. So sad that she lost one son and Vivian died relatively young at 61. She at least maintained good relations with him and her two sisters.

Thank you to NetGalley and the Pulisher for my ARC in return for an honest review.