Burnett, FRANCES HODGSON

Burnett, FRANCES HODGSON, novelist, was born at Manchester, November 24, 1849. About the close of the American civil war she emigrated with her parents to the United States, and settled in Tennessee. She married Dr Burnett in 1873, and after a lengthened tour in Europe, settled in Washington. She had early begun to write, but her first great success was her story, That Lass o' Louwrie's, which, after running through Scribner's Magazine, was issued at New York in 1877. Her second story, Haworth's, appeared in 1879. Both were novels of no common power, studies of Lancashire manufacturing life. The earlier of the two startled the reading public by its freshness and reality, no less than by a simple pathos and a delicate humour that recalled the touch of Mrs Gaskell. A Fair Barbarian (1882) and Through One Administration (1883) were later novels; Louisiana (1880) and Little Lord Fauntleroy were admirable minor tales; The one I knew best (1893) is autobiographical; A Lady of Quality (1896) and His Grace of Ormonde (1897) are novels.