The Forgotten Garden Gothic conventions found in books like Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, most poignantly the dark and gloomy estate. There are also recognizable parallels between this novel and Frances Hodgson Burnett's "The Secret Garden". Published in the United States by Atria Books, April 2009, , hardback. Kate Morton drew on personal experiences as she wrote "The Forgotten Garden." Morton's own grandmother, just like Nell, found out on her 21st birthday that she was not the biological daughter of her parents. It was a secret she kept until she confided in her three older daughters as an old woman, and this dark
Frances Hodgson Burnett stressed the age difference—Townsend was ten years younger than she—and she referred to him as her secretary. Biographer Ann Thwaite doubts he loved her. She claims at that time the 50-year-old Burnett was "stout, rouged and unhealthy". Thwaite believes Townsend needed her to help with his acting career and support him financially. Within months, in a letter to her sister, she admitted the marriage was in trouble. She described Townsend as scarcely sane and hysterical. Thwaite argues Townsend blackmailed her into the marriage: he wanted money from her and he wanted to control her as a husband. Unable to bear