Frances Hodgson Burnett is chiefly remembered for her children's book The Secret Garden (1911). With its rich mythic resonances and detailed portrayal of its child protagonists, the novel is hailed as one of the classics of children's literature. Her biggest contemporary success, however, was Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886), the story of a young American boy who becomes the heir to an English title. The success of the latter book's theatrical adaptations in England and the United States and the notoriety of the small hero's distinctive costume have earned Little Lord Fauntleroy the status of an icon of popular culture, though the story is now considered less significant for its literary merits than for its representation of the sentimental Victorian ideal of childhood. Burnett's A Little Princess (1905), a revised version of an earlier story and play, is also celebrated as a work of great imaginative power. These three books are usually cited as the author's major achievements, but her adventure-romance The Lost Prince (1915) has also been recognized as having merit, and her autobiography, The One I Knew the Best of All: A Memory of the Mind of a Child (1893), is valuable for its portrait of the artist as a young child in two cultures.
