Sophie Dahl Dahl was a contributing editor and regular columnist at "Men's Vogue", prior to its closure in 2008. Dahl is the author of three other books: "Playing with the Grown-Ups" (2008) and two cook books, "Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights" (2009) and "From Season To Season" (2011). She was a contributor to an anthology, "Truth or Dare" edited by Justine Picardie, which included works by Zoë Heller and William Fiennes. She also provided introductions to the Puffin Classic new edition of "The Secret Garden" by Frances Hodgson Burnett,and the Virago Press re-issue of Stella Gibbons' 1938 novel "Nightingale Wood" which was released
Frances Hodgson Burnett overcrowding and poverty that "defied description", according to Friedrich Engels, who lived in Manchester at the time. Frances had an active imagination, writing stories she made up in old notebooks. One of her favourite books was Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin", and she spent many hours acting out scenes from the story. Frances and her siblings were sent to be educated at The Select Seminary for Young Ladies and Gentlemen, where she was described as "precocious" and "romantic". She had an active social life and enjoyed telling stories to her friends and cousins; in her mother she found