A WOMAN NOVELIST.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6090, 29 January 1898, Page 3

A WOMAN NOVELIST.

MRS HODGSON-BURNETT. (Sarah A. Tooley in The 'Woman at Home.) For some years now Mrs HodgsonBurnett has divided her timo between her London house in Portland Place and her husband's home in Washington, varied by Continental travel and some occasional rusticatings in Surrey. She delights in change of scene, and has a passion for the creation of beautiful homes. As soon as she has established herself in one house, she sighs, like Alexander, for new worlds to conquer, and longs. to found another home in the next attractive spot which she visits. Little children interest her more than anything else in the world, whether it be those whom she moots in the homes of her friends or the destitute and pathetic little creatures : whom sho sees on the London pavements. She desires to • " mother " all v alike. It is unnecesssary to dwell upon the skill which the author of " Little Lord Fauntleroy " has for describing child-life, and her chief studies have been her own two boys — Lionel, whose sad death quite prostrated her some few years ago, and Vivian, now a young college graduate, who has had good reason to wish that his mother had never put him into a book, for he stands in danger of Deing"Lord Fauntleroy" to the end of his days. Overpowering as was the success of this book — its dramatization alone brought the author twenty thousand pounds — it was as the author of that fine study of Lancashire life, "That Lase o' Lowrie's," that Mrs H odgson-Burnett made her first fame as a novelist, and it says much for her power as a writer that she has been able to discard the role of a depictor of childlife, which an admiring public has persisted of later years in fastening upon her, and has achieved so brilliant a success in "A Lady of Quality," a book as daring in conception as the taste of the time demands, and yet withal so quaint <and graceful in style. I recall spending some hours with Mrs Hodgson-Burnett when this book was upon the mill, and it was easy to see how much intense thought and study was going to every line of its production, for by it she had to satisfy a public perpetually clamouring for more Lord Fauntleroys. Both the success and the criticisms were so overpowering that the author has been glad to live in semi-retirement ever sinee — largely abroad. Ere long " A Lady of Quality " will have a successor. To turn to the personal career of the novelist, she was born in Manchester, where her father was a merchant and her grandfather a cotton manufacturer, and she recalls how she used to break loose from home tc mingle in the throngs of millhands as they passed to and fro to work. In this way she picked up the Lancashire dialect which she afterwards used so effectively in her books. It was in the square of her Manchester home, and when she was a mere child, that she saw the girl who became her famous heroine. '• I was sitting one evening outside the drawing-room window, learning' my lessons," she told me, " when a crowd of millgirls passed through the square. One of them, a tall, handsome young woman, with an unusually refined look on her face, riveted , my attention. Presently her father, who was drunk, came up and began to abuse her, and I can recall to-day the fine disdain with which she went on with her knitting, and walked quietly out of the square Avithoufc replying to his brutal threats. Her face haunted me for years, but it was not until after our removal to America, and my subsequent return on a visit to Manchester, that I wrote 'That Lass o' Lowrie's/ and made her the heroine." Family reverses obliged Mrs HodgsonBurnett's mother to take her family to America, where they settled in a remote part of Tennessee, in a quaint log-house, which the merry children dubbed "Noah's Ark." It was now necessary for Frances to earn money, and she turned her attention to literature. From her earliest years she had been fond of scribbling, using discarded butcher's books for the purpose, and she had also enjoyed a reputation amongst the children in the square where she lived for her gift at story-telling. Verses she had also essayed, and one day she walked into her mother's room and read a poem which she had composed upon the woes of bachelors. "How very funny, Frances," said her mother, "where did you find it ?" Then the overjoyed child exultingly replied, " Why, I wrote it." This was her first triumph in authorship. After removal to America, she began to wonder whether some of the stories -which she had written a year or two before might not now be of use, and, selecting one called " Mis* Carruther's Engagement," she copied it out with the intention of sending it to a magazine, but alas! she had no money for stamps, and was reluctant to ask for any, as she had already suffered considerable ridicule in the home circle regarding her literary efforts. At length a friend supplied the needed stamps, and undertook to receive the editor's reply. The story was accepted, paid for, and published in Godey's Mazazine. The young writer was only fifteen at tho time, and from henceforward she has pursued literature with increasing success. After writing for smaller magazines, she aspired to Scribner's, and sent a story called " Surly Tim's Troubles," a sweet, pathetic little thing, whioh brought the following letter: — * "New York, Feb. 23, 1872. " Dear Miss Hodgson, — Dr Holland and Dr Holland's daughter (Miss Annie) and Dr Holland's right-hand man (myself) have all wept sore over ' Surly Tim.' Hope to weep again over MSS.from you. " Very sincerely and tearfully, " Watson Gildek." So began Mrs Hodgson-Burnett's long and happy connection with the original Scribner's Magazine. "That Lass o' Lowrie's," written for it while still a girl in her teens, was the first of her stories published in volume form, and it made her name as a novelist. It appeared in 1877, and two years later was followed by " Haworths," another story of Lancashire life written in dialect. Then the young author turned her attention to the Southern States, and wrote "Louisiana." Meantime her family had removed to Knoxville, on the banks of the Tennessee river, and there, in a house called Mount Ararat, she lived a very merry and interresting life with her brothers and sisters, and met her future husband, Dr Burnett. A year or two after their marriage, they lived for a period in Paris, to enable Dr Burnetfc-to complete his studies as an eye specialist, and in that city the novelist's younger son, Vivian, the original of Lord Fauntleroy, was born. Upon their return to America, Dr and Mrs Burnett settled in Washington, which has since remained their home. Contact with the life of the political capital had its influence iipon Mrs Hodgson-Burnetts writings, as seen in "Through One Administration," a novel which has an immense popularity in the States. "It was during a period of illness that the idea of writing 'Lord Faunteroy occurred to me," Mrs Hodgson Burnett explained. " I was so much amiised by my younger boy's quaint talk, that it led me to imagine how such a sturdy little Republican would comport himself if JWJ in the eocieiy of a proud, uascihl* -oiaj ; atKtocnicyr^^

I made Vivian into the son of a younger son, and transported him in imagination with his young widowed mother, a poor American beauty across the Atlantic to the home of his paternal grandfather. When people ask me how I wrote ' Lord Fauntleroy/ I can only reply that it flowed from my pen. It took me six weeks to write, and I think that the secret of its success was that it came straight from my mother's heart." "Little Lord Fauntleroy" has 'probably attained the greatest reputation of any child's story of the century; several charming studies of child-life — among them "Little Saint Elizabeth" and "The One I Knew Best of All" — have since been written by its author, but not another "Little Lord Fauntleroy." That remains one of those rare inspirations which come to. a writer, and which no amount of special study or self-culture can produce. In the -.realm of. ordinary fiction Mrs Hodgson-Burnett last year achieved, as I have before said, a signal' success in " A Lady of Quality," and she is about to publish a new book.