Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849–1924) was a popular British American novelist and playwright born to relative affluence in Manchester, England. After the death of her father and a reversal of fortune, Frances’s mother immigrated to the United States with her family and settled near Knoxville, Tennessee.
It was here, at the age of nineteen, where Frances began a modest career in writing to help support her family. Five years later, she married Dr. Swan Burnett, and she soon established herself as one of the most popular novelists of her era.
