Frances Hodgson Burnett was an English-American playwright and author. She is best known for her children's stories. Her talent lay in combining realistic detail, including authentic accented dialog, with a romantic plot. She is best known for the three children's novels Little Lord Fauntleroy (1885-1886), A Little Princess (1905), and The Secret Garden (1911). Many of Burnett's books have long been forgotten. You can read them in this edition. Burnett often suffered from various illnesses, possibly brought on by the pressures of her career and her being the main financial source for the family. When her son Lionel died of consumption in 1890 she was beset by depression. She turned to Spiritualism, Theosophy, and Christian Science to assuage her grief, topics that would occur in her novels.
