where do you live now? i wish you were here.

jay’s sideblog for the secret garden.

[jackedjacket]

“The Secret Garden is bad disability rep because it ends with Collin walking!” Cool, you didn’t actually read the book, did you? Because Collin doesn’t start walking because disabled people “need to get better” but because he’s breaking free from the extreme infantilization that he was subjected to his entire life. He starts walking because everyone in his life told him he couldn’t and to not bother even trying. He starts doing things for himself because he grew up being told all he was going to do was get sick and die, to the point where they hid him away and his father didn’t want to see him to reduce the hurt of his sons eventual death. This book isn’t about disabled people getting better, its about letting disabled people live a full life despite their illness

[byfightingwiththewind]

also to those of y’all saying colin wasn’t disabled: he shows very clear signs of depression and anxiety caused by parental neglect. he has real cptsd. those invisible illnesses are disabling and helped cause the immense executive dysfunction he also has !!

[seemoreandmore]

One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands out and throws one's head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one cry out and one's heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun--which has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. One knows it then for a moment or so. And one knows it sometimes when one stands by oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness slanting through and under the branches seems to be saying slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries. Then sometimes the immense quiet of the dark blue at night with the millions of stars waiting and watching makes one sure; and sometimes a sound of far-off music makes it true; and sometimes a look in someone's eyes. -Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

[thegreatestofthecomets]

revamped! i am like mariah carey defrosting for christmas just with spring

[butterscotch-goat]

"A Bit Of Earth" in a nutshell

[pemberlaey]

hot girl spring is out. mary lennox spring is in. get in loser we’re frolicking in the garden; we’re talking to birds; we’re getting lost in the heather; we’re wandering gothic manors in the dead of night and discovering secret cousins concealed in attic bedrooms, we’re jumping rope

[lemaldusiecle]

Autumn in Misselthwaite Manor. 🍂 🍁

[everafterwhy]

my favorite little known secret garden fact ever is this: brian roper played dickon sowerby in the 1949 adaptation of the secret garden and was 19 (playing a 12-year-old). he played dickon, the EXACT SAME CHARACTER, THREE YEARS LATER, AT 22 YEARS OLD in the 1952 television series adaptation.

[bobbyinthegarden]

Some photographs I took on a recent day trip to Great Maytham Hall near Rovendale in Kent, England. This was the home of Frances Hodgson Burnett from 1898 to 1907, and it's gardens provided the inspiration for her book The Secret Garden.

Sadly I was not able to go inside the house or gardens, as the house is not run by the National Trust or English Heritage, and so the gardens are only open for visitors on certain days in the year, but it was still wonderful to get to see the house, and to go on a walk in the surrounding nature (and then go for a drink at the pub afterwards)

(images descriptions in alt text)

[isfjmel-phleg]

I'm trying to wrangle all the TSG research into some kind of outline that makes sense, and a few thoughts have come up.

There were a lot of adaptations of The Secret Garden in the late 1980s and 1990s, coinciding with the book's coming into public domain in 1987. This died down for a while, but there's been a resurgence of adaptations and retellings within the past decade or so. These responses to the story would thus have come from people who were likely to have been influenced by such well-known adaptations as the 1993 film or the 1991 musical.

The adaptations of the 80s/90s tended to emphasize gothic elements, like the eerieness of the manor, the tragedy of lost parents, and an interpretation of Colin as the agency-less damsel in distress victim of villainous/misguided adults. They also tended to downplay the more down-to-earth elements, such as the influence of the Sowerbys and Ben Weatherstaff and the practical side of the children's recovery. Mrs. Sowerby, who is the book's personification of ideal parenthood, is notably absent from most of these adaptations. Since these adaptations were so well-known, they have had an impact on many people's understanding of the story, to the point that inventions of these adaptations are often treated as if they come from the book. (For the last time, everyone, Mary's uncle is not a lord, and Burnett never wrote the "whole world is a garden" line or anything like it.)

Therefore, we can look at the more recent adaptations and retellings as responses to not just the book but to earlier adaptations as well. And the influence of these adaptations has probably been a factor in these versions' reframing the story as about traditional grief rather than emotional neglect. It fits in better with the gothic perception of the story, which is more about the Tragedy and Loss and Drama. The elements that were downplayed in 80s/90s adaptations are also either downplayed or entirely omitted in recent versions. For instance, despite Mrs. Sowerby's prominence in the text, she or an equivalent does not appear/plays no meaningful role in such works as The Humming Room, The Misselthwaite Archives, The Secret Garden (2020 film), The Secret Garden on 81st Street, The Edge of In Between (maybe--I need to reread this one to confirm), The Secret Garden of Yanagi Inn, and A Bit of Earth, all of which date from 2012-2023. Without a positive maternal figure as a point of comparison and a force for good, the narrative is not interested in examining the effects of failed parenting versus successful parenting, and the themes have to go elsewhere. These are not necessarily "bad" adaptations or poorly done works in their own right! But their themes and priorities often significantly differ from those of the original text. Recent adaptations/retellings have tended to turn into a translation of a translation, and in the process some of the original's essence has been lost.

[isfjmel-phleg]

In true [Marion] Fairfax style, her [1919] script of The Secret Garden is a model of creepy details and shifty, underhanded dealings. These include Mary's two forays into a bog, and Dr. Craven's plot to poison Colin so that the doctor can inherit the manor. The movie is designed to keep filmgoers in a state of pop-eyed anxiety, but it also gratifies the softhearted by interposing an especially doting Mrs. Sowerby, and by marrying off Colin and Mary, who in this version are not cousins. Fairfax's Mrs. Medlock is a punishing crone who forces Mary to hem towels as a penalty for having helped Colin remove a brace prescribed by the sadistic Dr. Craven. At the end of the picture, the garden is "full of bloom, and happiness reigns"; but an important function of this mysterious walled quadrangle on the grounds of Misselthwaite is to serve as a place of retribution in which the children bury Colin's brace, to even the score with the malevolent medic.

--Sally Sims Stokes, "Painting the Garden: Noel Streatfeild, the Garden as Restorative, and Pre-1950 Dramatizations of The Secret Garden," from In the Garden: Essays in Honor of Frances Hodgson Burnett, edited by Angelica Shirley Carpenter

The first film adaptation of The Secret Garden was made in 1919. It has since been lost, but its script and a summary do still exist, from which Stokes derives the above description. It is interesting how many elements not from the book that are part of this adaptation have continued to be used by later films, such as the villainization of the doctor and Mrs. Medlock, romance between the children, and sensationalized action sequences. Yet unlike many later versions, it includes Mrs. Sowerby in a significant role.

[byfightingwiththewind]

[agushadow]

do y'all also have mutuals whom you’re actually a fan of? like everytime u see them on your dash u just,,,,, “u go mutual that’s my mutual!!!!! i love u mutual!!!! i can’t even believe we’re mutuals i don’t deserve u!!!! keep being u mutual!!!”

[high6]

The Secret Garden

[byfightingwiththewind]

also while road-tripping, i found these in a little gift shop! (image description in alt. text) i had never heard of this before, but apparently there’s a series of books called “babylit board books” which take classic lit and turn them into board books. “little miss burnett” made me chuckle. and i’m sorry i didn’t get a better picture, especially of the a little princess one! i didn’t look inside that one due to me finding these at the last minute (😭), but in the the secret garden one, it had illustrations of different flowers mentioned in burnett’s original accompanied by authentic quotes, complete with her depiction of yorkshire accents. i didn’t buy them as unfortunately i don’t have any babes in my life who i could gift these to, but they’re so sweet nonetheless!

[byfightingwiththewind]

so i’m road-tripping right now, and when we turned onto the street of our VRBO, we saw a mysterious green building labeled “the secret garden.” (image descriptions all in alt. text)

and, like, the house we’re in is gorgeous, don’t get me wrong, but when i found out that this tsg place was also a VRBO (albeit a themed one) i was kinda crushed that we hadn’t stayed there instead! to be fair, the tsg one isn’t on the market right now, and it only has one bedroom when we need at least three. but still.

look at this little place! apparently there are a couple VRBOs around here owned by the same person, known as the “the secret garden and dickon’s cottage rentals.” i think it’s adorable, and even if we didn’t get to stay there, it was still magical to see. here is a blog i found with pictures of the inside/yard in case you’re curious!

[tarantula-hawk-wasp]

Realized I never posted the bunch of pencil sketches I did of the Secret Garden (1993). That’s always been one of my favorite books and I quite enjoyed that movie adaptation.

World’s surliest little girl, her sickly Victorian waif of a cousin, and their animal whisperer best friend. Truly a trio of all time

[stellaluna33]

It's so funny to me the way multiple adaptations of "The Secret Garden" are so uncomfortable with the idea that Colin takes after his mother. They keep changing it so that MARY is the one who reminds her uncle of his dead wife instead! Because she's... a GIRL, I guess? And they think that would be less weird for some reason? Haha! Like... children CAN look like their opposite sex parent! That's a perfectly normal outcome of the genetic lottery! Real life isn't "Lady and the Tramp"! My goodness.

[isfjmel-phleg]

I think there might be a correlation between adaptations and retellings of The Secret Garden that do not feature Susan Sowerby/her equivalent in any prominent role or at all and adaptations and retellings that are preoccupied with the children's mourning (often beloved) deceased parents. With no one to fill the role of ideal maternal figure, the one who demonstrates what parental love should be, there's no contrast of failed and successful parenting and its effects, and this could be a factor in shifting the themes more toward traditional grief.

Mrs. Sowerby is such an important character to the story and its themes, and the omission of her from so many adaptations that are many people's only exposure to the story has diminished recognition of the significance of her role to what Burnett is saying about parental relationships.