FAQ

Ten-year-old Mary Lennox (Margaret O'Brien), a sour and spoiled child raised in India by non-affectionate parents, is forced to move to England to live with her uncle, Sir Archibald Craven (Herbert Marshall), when her parents both die of cholera. With only the hard-hearted housekeeper, Mrs Medlock (Gladys Cooper), to look after her, Mary is confined to her room, one of 100 rooms at the Craven manor, and made to care for herself. While playing outside one day, Mary finds a key to a garden that Sir Archibald has ordered locked since the death of his wife 10 years ago. With the help of her friend Dickon (Brian Roper), brother of Mary's maidservant Martha (Elsa Lanchester), Mary begins to care for the garden. One day, while exploring the manor against the orders of Mrs Medlock, Mary comes upon the source of a strange crying she has heard throughout the house -- her cousin Colin Craven (Dean Stockwell), a sickly child of her age who has been confined to his bed for years. With Mary's help and the secret garden, Mary brings life back to her cousin and the dreary manor.

The Secret Garden is a 1911 novel by English author Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924), published initially in serial format in The American Magazine, starting in the autumn of 1910. The novel has been made into several movies including: The Secret Garden (1919), 'The Secret Garden (1975) (TV series), Le jardin secret (1987), Le jardin secret (1993), and The Secret Garden (1999). It was adapted for this movie by American playwright and screenwriter Robert Ardrey.

Dickon and Mary sneak into Colin's room in the middle of the night to tell him how his mother was killed by a fallen tree limb and how his father afterward tried to chop down the tree. Dickon warns Colin that his father promised to destroy the garden if anyone ever went into it again. Colin promises never to reveal the garden to anyone. As they talk, Sir Archibald enters Colin's room, so Dickon and Mary hide under the bed. Father announces that he's going to take Colin to Italy with him 'for a long time', but Colin refuses to go. The next day, a man from London comes to purchase the house and write out a check for it. When the man mentions the beautiful secret garden that he saw when he climbed up a ladder, Sir Archibald rushes out to the garden where he finds Mary, Dickon, and his son. Colin rises from his wheelchair and walks toward his father while begging him not to hurt the garden. Sir Archibald hugs the children, and the buyer tears up his check.

Yes. The copyright has expired, and The Secret Garden is in the public domain. It can be downloaded free from Project Gutenberg.