Frances Hodgson Burnett dissolution of their marriage some years earlier. Swan took his own apartment and ceased to live with Burnett, so that after a period of two years she could plead desertion as a reason for the divorce. The press was critical, calling her a New Woman, with "The Washington Post" writing that the divorce resulted from Burnett's "advanced ideas regarding the duties of a wife and the rights of women". From the mid-1890s she lived in England at Great Maytham Hall—which had a large garden where she indulged her love for flowers—where she made her home for the next decade, although
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,