The Secret Garden
About this audiobook
In a house full of sadness and secrets, can young, orphaned Mary find happiness?
Mary Lennox, a spoiled, ill-tempered, and unhealthy child, comes to live with her reclusive uncle in Misselthwaite Manor on England’s Yorkshire moors after the death of her parents. There she meets a hearty housekeeper and her spirited brother, a dour gardener, a cheerful robin, and her willful, hysterical, and sickly cousin, Master Colin, whose wails she hears echoing through the house at night.
With the help of the robin, Mary finds the door to a secret garden, neglected and hidden for years. When she decides to restore the garden in secret, the story becomes a charming journey into the places of the heart, where faith restores health, flowers refresh the spirit, and the magic of the garden, coming to life anew, brings health to Colin and happiness to Mary.
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About the author
Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849--1924) was born in Cheetham, England. After her father's death in 1852, the family found itself in dire financial straits and in 1865 immigrated to the United States, settling near Knoxville, Tennessee. Frances began writing to help earn money for the family, publishing stories in magazines from the age of 19. While the novel Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886) made her a well-known writer of children's fiction, her romantic adult novels were also very popular. From 1898 to 1907, Burnett resided at Great Maytham Hall, a country house in Kent, England. It was the sprawling manor's walled garden that provided the inspiration for The Secret Garden, now considered a classic of English children's literature.
Johanna Ward (a.k.a. Kate Reading) is an Audie Award–winning narrator and has received numerous Earphones Awards from AudioFile magazine. She is also a theater actor in the Washington, DC, area and has been a member of Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company since 1987. Her work onstage has been recognized by the Helen Hayes Awards Society, among others. She and her husband live in Hyattsville, Maryland, with their two children.
