Best Books About Clean Classics by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Frances Hodgson Burnett wrote some of the most beloved children’s books in the English language - and nearly all of them are clean, wholesome, and suitable for readers of almost any age. Her three great novels - The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, and Little Lord Fauntleroy - have been read by generations of families, adapted into films and musicals, and translated into dozens of languages. They are stories about children who are brave and lonely and full of imagination, and about the way a child can transform a world.

If you are new to Burnett - or if you have read one of her novels and want to know what else she wrote - this guide will take you through her best work, organized by what each book offers.

The Essential Start: The Secret Garden#

The Secret Garden (1911)#

The most beloved of Burnett’s novels: Mary Lennox, a spoiled, neglected girl, is sent to live with her uncle at Misselthwaite Manor, a vast Yorkshire estate full of locked rooms and hidden gardens. Mary is cross and plain and friendless - “the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen” - and the book is about her transformation: the discovery of the locked garden, the friendship of the country boy Dickon, the healing of her sickly cousin Colin, and the slow blooming of them all.

It is the essential Burnett: a book about healing, about the natural world, about the power of a child’s imagination and attention. It is one of the greatest children’s novels ever written, and if you read only one Burnett book, this is the one.

The Secret Garden, and Why It Endures#

The book’s power comes from its honesty about its heroine: Mary is not lovable at the start - she is spoiled, angry, and unwanted - and the book does not pretend otherwise. Her transformation is earned: it happens through the garden, through Dickon’s gentle wisdom, through the slow work of caring for something. The book is an argument about attention and care: that the neglected child, given something to love, can heal; that the locked garden, given work and water, can bloom; and that the two healings are the same healing. It is one of the most hopeful books ever written, and it has never stopped being read.

The Other Two Great Novels: A Little Princess and Little Lord Fauntleroy#

Burnett wrote three great children’s novels, and the other two are essential reading for anyone who loved The Secret Garden.

A Little Princess (1905)#

Sara Crewe, a wealthy little girl with a vivid imagination, is sent to a London boarding school - and when her father dies and her fortune disappears, she is reduced to a servant in the attic, treated cruelly by the school’s headmistress. The book is about how Sara endures: her imagination, her dignity, her determination to “be a princess” - to behave, even in rags and hunger, as if she were one.

It is the essential companion to The Secret Garden: the same lonely child, the same transformation through imagination, but with a sharper edge - the book is about poverty, cruelty, and the power of the inner life. Sara is one of the great heroines of children’s literature, and the book is one of the great arguments for the dignity of the child.

Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886)#

Burnett’s first great success: Cedric Errol, a poor American boy, discovers he is the heir to an English earldom - and the book is about his winning over his crusty old grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt, through sheer goodness. The book made Burnett famous, made “Fauntleroy” a household word, and created a fashion for velvet suits that lasted decades.

It is the gentlest of Burnett’s great novels: less about suffering than about sweetness, less about transformation than about the way goodness wins. It is the essential read for readers who want Burnett at her warmest.

If You Loved the Lonely Child: Burnett’s Orphans#

Burnett’s great subject is the child who is alone - the orphan, the neglected, the unwanted - and her books are about what such children do: they imagine, they endure, they find their people. These books have children of the same kind.

A Little Princess, and the Child in the Attic#

Sara Crewe is the essential Burnett orphan: a child who has lost everything, who is treated with cruelty, who refuses to be broken. The book’s most famous scene - Sara, hungry and cold, discovering a feast left in her attic by a mysterious benefactor - is one of the most moving in children’s literature, and it is the book in miniature: the imagination as survival, the belief that somewhere, someone cares.

The Secret Garden, and the Child Nobody Wanted#

Mary Lennox is the other side of the same coin: a child who was never wanted, who has never been loved, who has learned to be hard. The book is about her unlearning that hardness - through the garden, through Dickon, through the discovery that she can love and be loved. The two books together are Burnett’s complete portrait of the lonely child: the one who endures and the one who heals.

Little Lord Fauntleroy, and the Child Who Wins#

Cedric is the third kind: the child who is loved - by his mother, by everyone - and who wins over even his crusty grandfather through pure goodness. He is the least realistic of Burnett’s children, and the most hopeful: the argument that a good child can change a hard old man.

If You Loved the Gardens: The Natural World in Burnett#

The garden is the heart of The Secret Garden - the locked place, the growing things, the magic of spring - and the natural world runs through all of Burnett’s best work. These books share her love of nature.

The Secret Garden, and the Magic of Growing Things#

The garden in the book is not just a setting; it is the book’s argument made visible. The garden has been locked for ten years, since the death of Mrs. Craven - and Mary, by finding it and working it, brings it back to life, and in doing so brings herself and Colin back to life too. The book is full of the natural world - the robin, the roses, the turning seasons - and it is an argument about what attention and care can grow: in a garden, in a child, in a family.

The Secret Garden, and the Yorkshire Moors#

The book is set on the Yorkshire moors - the vast, windy, beautiful landscape that surrounds Misselthwaite - and the moors are as much a character as the garden. The book is saturated in the place: the heather, the wind, the village below, the sense of a world both wild and healing.

The Secret Garden, Read for the Seasons#

The book is structured by the seasons: the winter of Mary’s arrival, the spring of the garden’s awakening, the summer of its full bloom. The seasons are the book’s rhythm, and they are its argument: that things grow in their own time, that the locked garden - like the locked hearts of the children - will open when the conditions are right.

If You Loved the Transformation: Burnett’s Arguments#

Burnett’s books are about transformation: the spoiled child who learns to care, the proud old man who learns to love, the lonely girl who learns to hope. Her books are arguments about what changes people - and they are, at heart, arguments about love.

The Secret Garden, and the Argument About Healing#

The book’s deepest argument is about healing: that it is not something done to a child but something a child does - through attention, through care, through the discovery that the world is full of things worth loving. Mary heals the garden, and the garden heals her; Colin heals through the garden; the book is an argument that the same is possible for every reader. It is one of the most hopeful books ever written.

A Little Princess, and the Argument About Dignity#

The book’s argument is about dignity: that it does not depend on wealth or position, that the child in rags can be a princess if she behaves like one, and that the inner life is a kingdom no one can take away. It is an argument about the worth of every child, and it is why the book has been beloved for more than a century.

Little Lord Fauntleroy, and the Argument About Goodness#

The book’s argument is the oldest one: that goodness wins. Cedric is not clever or brave in any dramatic way - he is simply good, and his goodness transforms his grandfather, his inheritance, and the whole community. It is a sentimental argument, and Burnett makes it with complete conviction.

If You Loved the Era: Burnett’s World#

Burnett wrote in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and her books are full of her world: the English estates, the American cities, the children’s nurseries and schoolrooms. Her books are also, quietly, about her own time - about class, about childhood, about the changing world.

The Secret Garden, and the World of the Manor#

The book is set in the world of the English country house - the manor, the servants, the gardens, the wealth and the loneliness of it. The book is an argument about that world: the locked garden is the locked heart of the family, and the book is about both being opened.

A Little Princess, and the City of London#

The book is set in London - the school, the streets, the fog - and the city is the book’s other character: the place where Sara’s fortune is made and lost, where she is reduced to the attic and where her imagination keeps her alive. It is the essential read for readers who want Burnett’s world at its most urban.

Little Lord Fauntleroy, and the Meeting of Two Worlds#

The book is about the meeting of America and England - the poor American boy and the rich English earl - and it is a portrait of two worlds colliding. It is the essential read for readers who want to see Burnett’s own transatlantic life reflected in her fiction.

Building Your Own Shelf: A Reading Order#

Here is a suggested path through Burnett’s best work:

• Start with The Secret Garden for the essential book.
• Move to A Little Princess for the lonely child in the attic.
• Try Little Lord Fauntleroy for the gentlest of the three.
• Pick up her other children’s books - The Lost Prince and The Little Princess’s companion stories - when you want more.
• End with a re-read of The Secret Garden to see the craft underneath.

For more books in this spirit, our family-friendly clean books for adults list gathers more wholesome, substantial reads, and our family-friendly fiction reading notes explain what makes these stories work for readers of every age. The stories section of our site is full of guides like this one, so there is always another classic to discover.

A Note on Burnett’s Life and Legacy#

The books are richer when you know the life behind them. Frances Hodgson Burnett was born in Manchester, England, in 1849; her father died when she was young, and the family emigrated to America, where they lived in poverty in a log cabin in Tennessee. Burnett began writing to support the family - she published her first story at nineteen - and she went on to become one of the most successful writers of her era, earning enough to support her family and to move between England and America. The loneliness of her own childhood is everywhere in her books: the neglected children, the locked gardens, the attics. She wrote Little Lord Fauntleroy in 1886, A Little Princess in 1905, and The Secret Garden in 1911 - the last written after the deaths of her two sons, and perhaps her most hopeful book for that reason. The Secret Garden is a book about healing written by a woman who had known great loss, and it is that combination - the grief and the hope - that gives it its power.

Why Burnett Endures#

Frances Hodgson Burnett wrote books that have been loved for more than a century, and the reason is simple: she wrote about children with complete seriousness. Her orphans are not cute; they are real - spoiled and brave and lonely and fierce - and her books take their inner lives seriously. She wrote about healing and dignity and the power of imagination, and she wrote with a hopefulness that has never gone out of style. The Secret Garden has been called the most hopeful book ever written, and it is - but the same hope runs through all her work: the belief that the neglected can bloom, that the lonely can find their people, and that a child can transform a world. Meet Mary, and Sara, and Cedric - and you will understand why Burnett has never stopped being read.