Originally published in 1911, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s novel The Secret Garden remains a classic of children’s literature. The novel was inspired by the garden at Great Maytham Hall in Kent, England, where Burnett lived for a number of years. There she developed a love for gardening: ‘As long as one has a garden, one has a future, and if one has a future, one is alive.’ The concealed, fictional garden in the novel symbolises the healing quality of nature. It serves as a magical retreat for both the fictional children and for the audience who enter into it via their imagination.
A green oasis, strewn with bluebells, herbs, shrubs, roses, and trees, the garden is walled in by solid, stone parameters. It can only be entered via a door set into the tall borders of this fortress. The garden is only unlocked for the public’s perusal a few times a year, making the enclosure all the more mysterious and enticing.
