Famous Writers:
Frances Hodgson Burnett
British born author Frances Hodgson Burnett initially wrote for adults, but she is known primarily for her children’s stories, The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, and Little Lord Fauntleroy. The latter, published in 1886, created a trend for little boys wearing long curls like those of Burnett’s son, Vivian, along with velvet suits with lace collars. The fictional Fauntleroy became a sterotypical image of sissy rich kids and probably contributed to numerous schoolyard fights across the country. Sales of the book, as popular with mothers as with their children, skyrocketed beyond the usual sales of children’s books. Royalties were in excess of those produced by adult novels written by well-known women authors of the time.
Frances Eliza Hodgson was born in 1849 in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, England. When she was four, her father’s death left her mother to support five children by continuing the family business that supplied art materials to wealthy manufacturers. Her efforts failed, partly due to the United State’s Civil War, and she had to sell the business. The family lived in poverty until the mother’s brother insisted they move to Knoxville, Tennessee. The relocation did not improve their lifestyle, but the environment was considerably better. When the mother died in 1867, 18-year-old Frances became the sole support of two younger siblings.
Frances, who’d had a fertile imagination since age seven, when she’d written poetry and novelettes, turned to writing for a living. She earned money to purchase paper and stamps by picking and selling wild grapes. Her first published work appeared in Godey’s Lady’s Book. With a talent for combining romance with working-class life Hodgson became a regular not only with Godey’s, but with Scribner’s Monthly, Peterson’s Ladies Magazine, and Harper’s Bazaar. Her five or six stories a month earned her about ten dollars apiece.
In 1873, Frances married Dr. Swan Burnett of Washington, DC, whom she had met years before. She gave birth to their first child, Lionel, in 1874. The family later traveled to Paris, where her second son, Vivian, was born. She continued writing and in 1877 published her first novel, That Lass O’ Lowrie’s, the story of a pit girl in a coal mine in Lancashire, England. Because U.S. copyright laws did not at that time apply in Britain, she received no royalties from the British edition.
Moving back to Washington, she published Haworth’s. In order to protect the copyright and royalties in England, she fulfilled the legal requirement of being on British soil on the day of British publication by traveling to Canada. But British copyright laws did not apply to plays, and British playwrights stole her material to write and produce stage versions of her books and stories, for which she received no payment. She wrote her own play based on That Lass O’ Lowrie’s, which was produced in New York City, but was not successful.
During a trip abroad in 1888, Frances heard that E.V. Seebohm had written a play of Little Lord Fauntleroy, soon to open. Hurrying to London, she wrote her own version en route, which opened three months later. She received better reviews than did Seebohm, and among those who saw the play were Prince Edward and his wife. Frances sued Seebohm, and the judge ruled in her favor, setting a precedent that later became incorporated in British copyright law. The Society of British Authors toasted Frances with a banquet, a diamond ring and bracelet, and a certificate of thanks.
Copyright law is, of course, complex, but briefly here’s what happened. Burnett had assigned the English copyright of Little Lord Fauntleroy to a Mr. Warne. When Seebohm “adapted” the story to a play, Burnett, through Warne, sued Seebohm. With an author having never won such a case before, it seemed unlikely that this plea would be successful. But the court ruled in their favor.
However, an author of a copyrighted work was still not protected against having her story acted on the stage. It said only that no one shall multiply copies of the book or any part of the book. Counsel for Burnett and Warne reminded Seebohm that he had sent a copy of the play he adapted from the novel to the Lord Chamberlain and that in the copy there are passages taken from the novel. Seebohm had thus multiplied copies of parts of the novel. Counsel demanded that Seebohm give up his copy of the play in which he had used parts of the novel. The plea was upheld and the copy of the play in question was turned over to Warne.
In 1890, the Burnett’s oldest son, Lionel, died of consumption. Frances sought comfort from spiritualism and theosophy. She used some of those concepts later when she wrote The Secret Garden, in which an invalid boy heals himself through positive thinking. Her writing during this period of mourning conveyed her grief and she was often depressed and ill and the subject of gossip. Because she refused to be interviewed, reporters wagged their tongues at her, criticizing her books, her trips, her marriage, even her remaining son, and linked her romantically with male friends.
Two years after divorcing Burnett, Frances married Stephen Townsend, a doctor, actor, and her business manager. Gossips speculated that Townsend might have been blackmailing the author. That marriage failed, too, ending in 1902. In 1905, Frances became a U.S. citizen, but she lived mainly in England, where she discovered a secret garden, and published the renowned book in 1911. It went to film in 1949, starring Margaret O’Brien and Dean Stockwell, and several television versions followed over the years.
Frances lived her last years in Plandome, New York, out of the spotlight. Her last public appearance was the screening of Little Lord Fauntleroy in 1921. She died in 1924 at age 74, and is buried in Plandome next to her son, Vivian, with a life-size effigy of Lionel at the foot of their plots.
