Synopsis
Sara Crewe, an exceptionally intelligent and imaginative student at Miss Minchin's Select Seminary for Young Ladies, is devastated when her adored, indulgent father dies. Now penniless and banished to a room in the attic, Sara is demeaned, abused, and forced to work as a servant. How this resourceful girl's fortunes change again is at the center of A Little Princess, one of the best-loved stories in all of children's literature.
This unique and fully annotated edition appends excerpts from Frances Hodgson Burnett's original 1888 novella Sara Crewe and the stage play that preceded the novel, as well as an early story, "Behind the White Brick," allowing readers to see how A Little Princess evolved. In his delightful introduction, U. C. Knoepflmacher considers the fairy-tale allusions and literary touchstones that place the book among the major works of Victorian literature, and shows it to be an exceptionally rich and resonant novel.
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About Frances Hodgson Burnett
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Frances Hodgson Burnett
1849–1924
Frances Hodgson Burnett was best known as an English playwright and author. Frances Eliza Hodgson was born on November 24, 1849, at Cheetham Hill, Manchester, England, to Eliza Boond and Edwin Hodgson. She was the middle child of five, with two older brothers and two younger sisters. Frances grew up in a comfortable home. Mr. Hodgson sold brass goods to upper class households, and the family had a maid, a nurse-maid, and a horse and carriage. However, in the early 1850's when Frances was only three or four years old, her father died of a stroke, and the family was forced to sell their house and move. Her mother carried on the business, and Frances was often left in the care of her grandmother, who taught her to read. Her future as a writer might have begun here. When she was about sixteen, the family moved to Knoxville, Tennessee. From then until she was nineteen, Frances supported them by selling her stories to magazines. In September 1873, she married Swan Burnett. The couple moved to Paris for two years and had there two sons. In 1892, following the death her son Lionel from tuberculosis, Frances suffered severe depression. In 1898, she divorced Swan Burnett and remarried two years later; this second marriage only lasted a year. Frances settled in Long Island, New York, where she lived for the rest of her life. She died in 1924 and rests in Roslyn Cemetery in Greenvale, New York, next to her other son, Vivian.
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