When she leaves Plandome Mrs. Burnett consents to spend a few days in noisome New York—you can buy things there, after all, and editors and publishers there do congregate—and then she flees to Bermuda. But not until the last cosmos of autumn has perished and gone and every flowerbed at Plandome has been “tucked in a blanket of fertilizer.” In Bermuda she—gardens. She imports, in times more favorable than the present, countless roses from England. Her Bermuda cottage is unpretentious but charming.

To revert for a moment to The Shuttle, we may note something almost prescient in what Mrs. Burnett said, in 1907, about England and America, in a letter respecting this novel. She somewhat regretted the characterization of the book as “a novel of international marriage.” That, she argued, was hardly her theme. Of course not. She has no abstract themes. She wrote:

“The subject (of international marriage) is an enormous one, and if I had written all I have been observing for years and all I should have liked to write I should have made a three-volume novel.

“When I say ‘the subject’ I do not mean merely the international marriage question, but the whole international outlook upon a situation between two great countries such as the history of the world—as far as I know it—has not previously recorded. The wonderfulness of it lies in the fact that two nations which were one, having parted with violence and bitterness, are with a strange sureness being drawn nearer, nearer to each other. That they are of the same blood—the mere fact that they speak the same tongue—makes the thing inevitable in the end.

“I do not mean The Shuttle to be merely a story of international marriage, but to suggest a thousand other things. The international marriage must, however, result in being a strong factor, and in the hands of a writer of fiction it must play a prominent part—a leading part, so to speak—because it is the love story, and without it we are lost. For the matter of that, without it ‘the shouting and the tumult’ would die, ‘the captains and the kings depart.’

“Because I am English by birth and American by a sort of adoption, and because I have vibrated between the two continents for years, I have learned to be impersonal and unpartisan. I was neither American nor English when I told the story. I was merely an intensely interested person who had formed a habit of crossing the Atlantic twice a year.

“There have been disastrous international marriages and there have been successful ones; there is no reason why there should not be international marriages at once dignified and splendid—even history-making. Still, I wish I had had room to add to The Shuttle pictures of the thousand other things I find absorbing.”

It is not possible to do more than make suggestions as to what books of Mrs. Burnett’s a reader should be sure to dip into. No two set of suggestions would be identical, in all likelihood, but grownups can acquire at least a respectable acquaintance with her work by reading That Lass o’ Lowrie’s, A Fair Barbarian, Little Lord Fauntleroy, Sara Crewe, The Pretty Sister of José, In Connection With the De Willoughby Claim, The Shuttle, The Dawn of a To-Morrow, The Secret Garden, T. Tembaron and Emily Fox-Seton. No selective list for children is worth making; give them any or all!

Books by Frances Hodgson Burnett

That Lass o’ Lowrie’s, 1877. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York.
Dolly, A Love Story, 1877.
Kathleen, 1877. Hurst.
Surly Tim and Other Stories, 1877. Scribner.
Haworth’s, 1879. Scribner.
Louisiana, 1880. Scribner.
A Fair Barbarian, 1881. Scribner.
Through One Administration, 1883. Scribner.
Little Lord Fauntleroy, 1886. Scribner.
Editha’s Burglar. The Page Company, Boston.
Sara Crewe, 1888. Scribner.
Little Saint Elizabeth, 1889.
Two Little Pilgrims’ Progress, 1896. Scribner.
The Pretty Sister of José, 1896. Scribner.
A Lady of Quality, 1896. Scribner.
His Grace of Ormonde, 1897. Scribner.
The Captain’s Youngest, 1898.
In Connection With the De Willoughby Claim, 1899. Scribner.
The Making of a Marchioness, 1901. Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York.
The Methods of Lady Walderhurst. Stokes.
In the Closed Room, 1904. Doubleday, Page & Company, New York.
A Little Princess, 1905. Scribner.
Jarl’s Daughter, 1906. Donohue. Given in the United States Catalogue of Books in Print (1912).
Queen Silverbell, 1906. The Century Company, New York. Given in the United States Catalogue of Books in Print (1912).
Racketty-Packetty House, 1906. Century. Given in the United States Catalogue of Books in Print (1912).
Earlier Stories (Lindsay’s Luck, etc.), 1907. Scribner. Given in the United States Catalogue of Books in Print (1912).
Giovanni and the Other: Children Who Have Made
Stories, 1907. Scribner. Given in the United States Catalogue of Books in Print (1912).
Emily Fox-Seton (Combining The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst). Stokes.
Lindsay’s Luck. Hurst. Given in the United States Catalogue of Books in Print (1912).
Miss Crespigny. Donohue. Given in the United States Catalogue of Books in Print (1912).
Piccino and Other Child Stories. Scribner. Given in the United States Catalogue of Books in Print (1912).
Pretty Polly Pemberton. Hurst. Given in the United States Catalogue of Books in Print (1912).
Quiet Life. Donohue. Given in the United States Catalogue of Books in Print (1912).
Theo. Hurst. Given in the United States Catalogue of Books in Print (1912).
Vagabondia. Scribner. Given in the United States Catalogue of Books in Print (1912).
The Shuttle, 1907. Stokes.
The Cozy Lion, 1907. Century.
Good Wolf, 1908. Moffat, Yard & Company, New York.
Spring Cleaning, 1908. Century.
The Dawn of a To-Morrow, 1909. Scribner.
The Secret Garden, 1909. Stokes.
My Robin, 1912. Stokes.
T. Tembaron, 1913. A. L. Burt Company, New York.
Barty Crusoe and His Man Saturday, 1914. Moffat, Yard.
One I Knew The Best of All, 1915. Scribner.
The Lost Prince, 1915. Burt.
The Land of the Blue Flower, 1916. Moffat, Yard.
The Little Hunchback Zia, 1916. Stokes.
The Way to the House of Santa Claus, 1916. Harper & Brothers, New York.
White People, 1917. Harper.
The Head of the House of Coombe, 1922. Stokes.
Robin, 1922. Stokes.