The Secret Garden. by BURNETT, Frances Hodgson - 1911

London: William Heinemann,, 1911. Octavo. Finely bound by the Chelsea Bindery in dark green morocco, titles and decoration to spine gilt with pink onlaid morocco flower pieces, raised bands, single rule to boards gilt, twin rule to turn-ins gilt, floral endpapers, gilt edges. With 8 colour illustrations by Charles Robinson. Some occasional minor foxing, otherwise an excellent copy in a fine binding. First edition, first impression. The Secret Garden was first serialized, starting in autumn 1910, in The American Magazine, a publication aimed at adults. The entire book was first published in the summer of 1911 by Frederick A. Stokes in New York and simultaneously by Heinemann in London. The American edition was illustrated by M. B. Kork, whereas the English edition has illustrations by the prolific illustrator Charles Robinson, whose younger brothers Thomas Heath Robinson and William Heath Robinson also became illustrators. Born in Manchester, England, Burnett moved several times back and forth between England and America, before adopting US citizenship in 1905. The novel was mainly written in Buile Hill Park while visiting Manchester in 1904, but published while she was living in Plandome Manor, New York. During her lifetime her rags-to-riches story Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886) was a publishing sensation, although over the years The Secret Garden has retained the popularity that Little Lord Fauntleroy has lost.