The Shuttle (novel) lay their coronets, and incidentally their hearts, at the feet of the all-conquering American Girl.’ The building and grounds of ‘Stornham Court’ were modelled after Great Maytham Hall, near Rolvenden in Kent, which had a beautiful garden that Bettina starts restoring in "The Shuttle" and which also inspired the titular garden of "The Secret Garden". Angelica Shirley Carpenter writes in "In the Garden, Essays in Honor of Frances Hodgson Burnett" that Burnett's depiction of Sir Nigel's abuse of Rosalie mirrors the abuse that Burnett herself suffered at the hands of her second husband Stephen: "All the classic signs of abuse,
Frances Hodgson Burnett 1870, her mother died, and in 1872 she married Swan Burnett, who became a medical doctor. The Burnetts lived for two years in Paris, where their two sons were born, before returning to the United States to live in Washington, D.C. Burnett then began to write novels, the first of which ("That Lass o' Lowrie's"), was published to good reviews. "Little Lord Fauntleroy" was published in 1886 and made her a popular writer of children's fiction, although her romantic adult novels written in the 1890s were also popular. She wrote and helped to produce stage versions of "Little Lord Fauntleroy"