20 supremely cozy books and movies for hibernation season

13. The Secret Garden

In Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 1911 novel, The Secret Garden, protagonist Mary Lennox starts off rude and sour. That was probably a turnoff for early 20th century readers, but perhaps those of us who have made it through the past couple of years can identify.

Well, hopefully not too much. Mary got the way she is through parental neglect. She was born to wealthy British parents stationed in India, during the height of the British Empire. They are, at best, indifferent to their strange little daughter. The servants of their household are the ones that actually raise her, in fact. Perhaps their permissiveness turned little Mary into a sour grape, says Burnett in a flash of Victorian priggishness.

But the first few pages in India don’t last long. Mary’s parents and the servants are killed in a cholera epidemic, though Mary herself survives. She’s sent to live in far-off Yorkshire, a Northern English county that’s about as different from Mary’s India as the moon. Why Yorkshire? That’s where here Uncle Archibald Craven lives, at the thoroughly spooky and remote Misselthwaite Manor.

This isn’t a cozy ghost tale, however. Burnett has an agenda, as she wants to show that a good, old-fashioned dose of the outdoors will do wonders for cranky, sickly Mary. The young girl eventually warms up to the servants at Misselthwaite Manor, in particular young maid Martha Sowerby and gardener Ben Weatherstaff. The two more or less point Mary in the direction of the late Mrs. Craven’s garden (the “secret garden” of the title, naturally).

Mary begins to care for the neglected garden, which soon enough blooms with the care and encroaching springtime weather. She makes friends with Martha’s young brother, Dickon, and her even more sickly cousin, Colin.

This is one of those rare cases where you may want to watch the film first. Specifically, the 1993 movie directed by Agnieszka Holland. It’s able to capture the growing lushness of the garden and Mary’s inner life, without all of the Victorian moralizing by Burnett. That’s not to say you shouldn’t read the novel. It’s plenty cozy, to say the least. Just be sure to do so with the understanding that its author had a very particular agenda.