Frances Hodgson Burnett In 1936 a memorial sculpture by Bessie Potter Vonnoh was erected in her honour in Central Park's Conservatory Garden. The statue depicts her two famous "Secret Garden" characters, Mary and Dickon. Frances Eliza Hodgson was born at 141 York Street in Cheetham, Manchester. She was the third of five children of Edwin Hodgson, an ironmonger from Doncaster in Yorkshire, and his wife Eliza Boond, from a well-to-do Manchester family. Hodgson owned a business in Deansgate, selling ironmongery and brass goods. The family lived comfortably, employing a maid and a nurse-maid. Frances had two older brothers and two younger sisters. In
Frances Hodgson Burnett in 1879, where she met Louisa May Alcott, and Mary Mapes Dodge, editor of children's magazine "St. Nicholas", Burnett began to write children's fiction. For the next five years she had published several short works in "St. Nicholas". Burnett continued to write adult fiction as well: "Louisiana" was published in 1880; "A Fair Barbarian" in 1881; and "Through One Administration" in 1883. She wrote the play "Esmerelda" in 1881, while staying at the "Logan House" inn near Lake Lure, North Carolina; it became the longest running play on Broadway in the 19th century. However, as had happened earlier in Knoxville,