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Frances Hodgson Burnett was born in Manchester, England, in 1849. In 1865, after her father's death, her mother moved the family to rural Tennessee, where they struggled to earn a living. At seventeen, Burnett sold her first story to a magazine, and by the time she was twenty-two she had earned enough to return to England. From 1887 until her death, she maintained homes in both England and America. Bother her marriages-to Dr. Swan Burnett, with whom she had two sons, from 1874 to 1898, and to actor Stephen Townsend from 1900 to 1902-ended in divorce. Burnett wrote a number of popular novels for adults, among them THE LASS O' LOWRIE'S (1877), THROUGH ONE ADMINISTRATION (1883), and THE SHUTTLE (1907), as well as several plays and a memoir of her childhood, THE ONE I KNEW BEST OF ALL (1893). But she is mainly remembered for her children's novels: LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY (1886), A LITTLE PRINCESS (1905; an explained version of the 1888 novella SARA CREWE and the stage play of THE LITTLE PRINCESS), and THE SECRET GARDEN (1911). Burnett died in 1924 at her home in Long Island. JILLIAN TAMAKI is an illustrator and comics artist. She grew up on the Canadian Prairies and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has been published in THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER and NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, among others. She has two books of personal work, and a graphic novel that she made with her cousin Mariko Tamaki.
It is only the exceptional author who can write a book about children with sufficient skill, charm, simplicity, and significance to make it acceptable to both young and old. Mrs. Burnett is one of the few thus gifted. <i>The New York Times</i>
