FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT.
FAMOUS AUTHOR OF “LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY.”
F Mrs. Burnett were not a native of England, she might be called a typical American woman. As all Americans, however, are descended at very few removes from foreign ancestors, it may, nevertheless, be said of the young English girl, who crossed the ocean with her widowed mother at the age of sixteen, that she has shown all the pluck, energy and perseverance usually thought of as belonging to Americans. She settled with her mother and sisters on a Tennessee farm; but soon began to write short stories, the first of which was published in a Philadelphia magazine in 1867. Her first story to achieve popularity was “That Lass o’ Lowrie’s,” published in “Scribner’s Magazine” in 1877. It is a story of a daughter of a miner, the father a vicious character, whose neglect and abuse render all the more remarkable the virtue and real refinement of the daughter. Mrs. Burnett delights in heroes and heroines whose characters contrast strongly with their circumstances, and in some of her stories, especially in “A Lady of Quality,” published in 1895, she even verges on the sensational.
In 1873 Miss Hodgson was married to Doctor Burnett, of Knoxville, Tennessee. After a two years’ tour in Europe, they took up their residence in the city of Washington, where they have since lived.
Mrs. Burnett’s longest novel, “Through One Administration,” is a story of the political and social life of the Capital. “Pretty Polly Pemberton,” “Esmeralda,” “Louisiana,” “A Fair Barbarian,” and “Haworth’s” are, after those already mentioned, her most popular stories. “That Lass o’ Lowrie’s” has been dramatized. Mrs. Hodgson is most widely known, however, by her Children Stories, the most famous of which, “Little Lord Fauntleroy,” appeared as a serial in “St. Nicholas” in 1886, and has since been dramatized and played in both England and America.
Since 1885 her health has not permitted her to write so voluminously as she had previously done, but she has, nevertheless, been a frequent contributor to periodicals. Some of her articles have been of an auto-biographical nature, and her story “The One I Knew Best of All” is an account of her life. She is very fond of society and holds a high place in the social world. Her alert imagination and her gift of expression have enabled her to use her somewhat limited opportunity of observation to the greatest advantage, as is shown in her successful interpretation of the Lancashire dialect and the founding of the story of Joan Lowrie on a casual glimpse, during a visit to a mining village, of a beautiful young woman followed by a cursing and abusive father.