Frances Hodgson Burnett

‘A Little Princess’ tells the story of Sara Crewe, beloved daughter of the revered Captain Crewe. Sent to board at Miss Minchin's Select Seminary for Young Ladies, Sara is devastated when her adored father dies. Suddenly penniless, Sara is banished to an attic room where she is starved, abused, and forced to work as a servant. How this exceptionally intelligent girl uses the only resources available to her, imagination and friendship, to overcome her situation and change her fortunes is at the centre of this enduring classic.

Brought from India to chilly, fog-bound London, Sara Crewe is enrolled as a pupil at Miss Minchin's Select Seminary for Young Ladies. Her doting father, Captain Crewe, has provided her with fine clothes and luxuries fit for a princess, and she attracts envious attention. But Sara soon wins friends with her kindness, taking the school's misfits under her wing, and telling them wonderful stories to cheer them up. Yet despite her best efforts, her spiteful classmate Lavinia and mean headmistress Miss Minchin remain determined to dislike her.

Then one day, Sara receives some terrible news. Her father has died, and his fortune is lost. Suddenly penniless, Sara is stripped of all her possessions and forced to become a servant. Banished to the attic with only her dreams to sustain her, will her courage, warm heart and imagination see her through?

After losing her parents, young Mary Lennox is sent from India to live in her uncle's gloomy mansion on the wild English moors. She is lonely and has no one to play with, but one day she learns of a secret garden somewhere in the grounds that no one is allowed to enter. Then Mary uncovers an old key in a flowerbed - and a gust of magic leads her to the hidden door. Slowly she turns the key and enters a world she could never have imagined.

When he no longer has enough money to keep up his English estate, Stornham Court, Sir Nigel Anstruthers comes to New York in search of an heiress. He finds and marries the pretty and cosseted Rosalie Vanderpoel, the daughter of an American millionaire. But on their return to England, Nigel and his mother isolate Rosalie from her family. Many years later, Rosalie's now-grown up sister Bettina, arrives at Stornham Court to investigate why she has not heard from her sister for over a decade. First published in 1907, The Shuttle is one of Burnett's longer and more complex books.