The Secret Garden is a children's novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett first published in book form in 1911, after serialisation in The American Magazine (November 1910 – August 1911).

She befriends her maid, Martha Sowerby, who tells Mary about Lilias, who would spend hours in a private walled garden growing roses.

Mary visits Colin every day that week, distracting him from his troubles and despondency with stories of the moor, Dickon, and the secret garden.

Furious at Ben's comments, Colin rises shakily from his chair and finds that he can stand, although his legs are weak from long disuse.

Together, the children and Ben conspire to keep Colin's recovering health a secret from the other staff, hoping to surprise his father who is travelling abroad.

He finds the door unlocked, and is astonished to see the garden in full bloom and his son restored to health, having just won a race against Mary.

[5] Joe Sutliff Sanders examines Mary and The Secret Garden within the context of the Victorian and Edwardian cultural debate over affective discipline, which was echoed in contemporary books about orphan girls.

He suggests that The Secret Garden was interested in showing the benefits of affective discipline for men and boys, namely Colin who learns from Mary, understood as "the novel's representative of girlhood" and how to wield his "masculine privilege".

[8] Madelon S. Gohlke understands the titular garden as "both the scene of a tragedy, resulting in the near destruction of a family", as well as the site of its regeneration and restoration.

[12] In his examination of The Secret Garden within the context of postcolonialism, Jerry Phillips writes that the novel "is not so much a discourse on the end of empire as an embryonic commentary on the possibility of blowback".

[22] Burnett reminisces on her friendship with the real-life English robin, whom she described as "a person—not a mere bird" and who often kept her company in the rose garden where she would often write, when she lived at Maytham Hall.

[23] Maytham Hall in Kent, England, where Burnett lived for a number of years during her marriage, is often cited as the inspiration for the book's setting.

[25] She writes that Burnett may have also taken inspiration from Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel Jane Eyre, noting parallels between the two narratives: both of them, for example, feature orphans sent to "mysterious mansions", whose master is largely absent.

[26] Burnett herself was aware of the similarities, remarking in a letter that Ella Hepworth Dixon had described it as a children's version of Jane Eyre.

[27] Eighty of the first hundred pages of the manuscript are written in black ink, while the rest and subsequent revisions were made in pencil; the spelling and punctuation tend to follow the American standard.

[19] The Secret Garden was first published in ten issues (November 1910 – August 1911) of The American Magazine, with illustrations by J. Scott Williams.

[39] It sold well during the 1911 Christmas season, becoming a bestseller in the fiction category, and placing on critical "best of" lists, including that of the Literary Digest and The New York Times.

[41] Of this time, scholar Anne Lundin writes that "The Secret Garden struggled to assert its own identity as a different kind of story that spoke to both the romanticism and modernism of a new century".

[42] Tracing the book's revival from almost complete eclipse at the time of Burnett's death in 1924, Lundin notes that the author's obituary notices all remarked on Little Lord Fauntleroy and passed over The Secret Garden in silence.

[43] Burnett's literary reputation waned over the following decades, possibly as a result of biases towards books that garner a female audience.

[44] Other British literary critics and historians began to take note of the novel, including Roger Lancelyn Green and John Rowe Townsend.

In 1949, MGM filmed the second adaptation, which starred Margaret O'Brien as Mary, Dean Stockwell as Colin and Brian Roper as Dickon.

American Zoetrope's 1993 production was directed by Agnieszka Holland with a screenplay by Caroline Thompson and starred Kate Maberly as Mary, Heydon Prowse as Colin, Andrew Knott as Dickon, John Lynch as Lord Craven and Dame Maggie Smith as Mrs Medlock.

[58][59] Hallmark Hall of Fame filmed a TV movie adaptation of the novel in 1987, which starred Gennie James as Mary, Barret Oliver as Dickon and Jadrien Steele as Colin.

Stage adaptations of the book include a Theatre for Young Audiences version written in 1991 by Pamela Sterling of Arizona State University.

A stage play by Jessica Swale adapted from the novel was performed at Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre in Chester in 2014.

[66] In 2020, the Scottish family theatre company Red Bridge Arts produced a retelling of the story set in modern-day Scotland, adapted by Rosalind Sydney.

[67] In 2024, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre produced a retelling of the story, adapted by Anna Himali Howard and Holly Robinson.

The first, released on June 15, was The Secret Garden: A Graphic Novel, with story by Mariah Marsden and illustrations by Hanna Luechtefeld.

[70] The second, released on October 19, was a modern retelling by Ivy Noelle Weir, The Secret Garden on 81st Street, following the same vein as the author's previous Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy.