Frances Hodgson Burnett was an English-American author. She was born in Manchester, England in 1849 and moved with her family to Knoxville, Tennessee in 1864. From an early age, Burnett was inclined to writing. As her family lived in poor conditions, due to the economic effects of the Civil War, Burnett often made due with writing on the back of grocery lists. She married her childhood friend, Swan Burnett, in 1873, with whom she had two sons.
Burnett would spend her life penning many plays, stories, and novels, often centered around rags-to-riches themes. She published her first novel, That Lass o' Lowrie's, in 1877 to much critical acclaim. When Burnett lost her son to tuberculosis in...