Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924) was born in Manchester and spent her early years there with her family. Her father died in 1852, and eventually, in 1865, Frances emigrated to the United States with her mother and siblings, settling with family in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Frances began to be published at the age of nineteen, submitting short stories to magazines and using the proceeds to help support the family. In 1872, she married Swan Burnett, a doctor, with whom she had two sons while living in Paris. Her first novel, That Lass o'Lowrie's, was published in 1877, while the Burnetts were living in Washington D. C. Following a separation from her husband, Burnett lived on both sides of the Atlantic, eventually marrying for a second time, however she never truly recovered from the death of her first son, Lionel.

Best known during her lifetime for Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886), her books for children, including The Secret Garden and The Little Princess, have endured as classics, but Burnett also wrote many other novels for adults, which were hugely popular and favourably compared to authors such as George Eliot.