Waiting For the Party. The Life of Frances Hodgson Burnett. 1849-1924

London England: Secker & Warburg, 1974. Hardback. First Edition. Waiting For the Party. Slight foxing to end inside covers and edge. Slight shelf wear to edge of D/J. Price clipped to D/J. Most people have heard of Little Lord Fauntleroy, and of The Secret Garden. Yet few people realizethat the same woman wrote both books, twenty-five years apart, and was considered, along with Henry James, as one of the leading writers in America on the strength of the adult novels which made her name in the 1870s and 1880s. Frances Hodgson Burnett's favourite theme in fiction was the reversal of fortune, and she herself knew the extremes of poverty and wealth. Born in Manchester in 1849 ashe emigrated with her family to Tennessee at the close of the Civil War. There she picked wild grapes to pay for the postage on the first stories she hopefully sent off to magazines. She went on to become a friend of President Garfield, of Henry James and Israel Zangwill, and to be admired by Gladstone, to cross the Atlantic thirty-three times, and to win a lawsuit which helped to change the copyright laws of England. She survived two broken marriages and the death of a son. On the surface, her life was extremely successful. She played the roles of Famous Writer and Fairy Godmother with enthusiasm, but happiness eluded her. She was always waiting for the party, but it went on in other rooms. Illustrated. 274 pp. Plastic protective covering. (We carry a wide selection of titles in The Arts, Theology, History, Politics, Social and Physical Sciences. academic and scholarly books and Modern First Editions, Reference books ,and all types of Academic Literature.) . First Edition. Cloth. Very Good/Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" Tall Octavo. Hardback.