My Robin Book

Frances Hodgson Burnett, (1849 - 1924) was an English?American playwright and author. She is best known for her children's stories, The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, and Little Lord Fauntleroy. After her father?s death in 1854 her family lived in poverty in the Victorian slums of Manchester. After moving to Tennessee her mother died in 1867, which made Frances the sole support of the younger children. It was at this point that she began to write. My Robin begins with a personal note from the author as follows ?There came to me among the letters I received last spring one which touched me very closely. It was a letter full of delightful things but the delightful thing which so reached my soul was a question. The writer had been reading "The Secret Garden" and her question was this: "Did you own the original of the robin? He could not have been a mere creature of fantasy. I feel sure you owned him." I was thrilled to the centre of my being. Here was some one who plainly had been intimate with robins-- English robins. I wrote and explained as far as one could in a letter what I am now going to relate in detail.? From the first words the reader is drawn into the story of the hunchback ?The little hunchback Zia toiled slowly up the steep road, keeping in the deepest shadows, even though the night had long fallen. Sometimes he staggered with weariness or struck his foot against a stone and smothered his involuntary cry of pain. He was so full of terror that he was afraid to utter a sound which might cause any traveler to glance toward him. This he feared more than any other thing--that some man or woman might look at him too closely. If such a one knew much and had keen eyes, he or she might in some way guess even at what they might not yet see.?Read More