During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Frances Hodgson Burnett stood out among the extraordinary writers who emerged in Britain. She was appreciated above all for the romantic themes that were delicately woven into her enchanting stories and for her ability to portray spoiled and stubborn children as strong and heroic characters, strongly inspired by a lonely and suffering childhood. “Burnett had the ability to recapture universal aspects of childhood and transform them into realistic stories containing fantastic or fairy-tale elements” (Resler 1). Although he wrote many novels, Burnett's main works were children's novels, such as The Secret Garden and Una little princess. In her novel The Secret Garden, Burnett depicts young Mary Lennox as a child who is cast aside and then abandoned when the plague strikes her home town a completely new country, Mary transforms from a selfish and stubborn child into a caring and loving young woman. She learns to see the world in a new perspective after transforming an abandoned and locked secret garden into something beautiful, alive and thriving. The transformation and growth within the garden symbolizes the way Mary grows and matures. It also symbolizes the changes in Mary's personality in the way that as the garden grows and becomes beautiful and vibrant, so does her personality. . At the beginning she was mean, ordinary and evil, but by the end of the book she is loving, caring and kind. The changes within the garden also symbolize another character, Colin. Colin is a sick child who spends his days in bed or in a wheelchair. That is, until Mary Lennox moved into Miselthwaite Manor. Af...... middle of the sheet ......rpenter, Angelica S., ed. N the Garden: Essays in Honor of Frances Hodgson Burnett. NP: Scarecrow, 2006. Print. “English literature”. Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica Online academic edition. Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 07 April 2014. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/188217/English-Literature.“Frances Hodgson Burnett.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica Online academic edition. Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 07 April 2014. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/85631/Frances-Hodgson-Burnett.Resler, Johanna Elizabeth. Sara's Transformation: A Textual Analysis of Sara Crewe and a Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. December 2007. English Department: Indiana University.Thwaite, Ann. Waiting for the Party: The Life of Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1849-1924. New York: Scribner, 1974. Print.