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    In the Closed Room
    In the Closed Room
    In the Closed Room
    Ebook64 pages51 minutes

    In the Closed Room

    By Frances Hodgson Burnett

    4/5

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateJan 1, 2004
    Author

    Frances Hodgson Burnett

    Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849–1924) grew up in England, but she began writing what was to become The Secret Garden in 1909, when she was creating a garden for a new home in Long Island, New York. Frances was a born storyteller. Even as a young child, her greatest pleasure was making up stories and acting them out, using her dolls as characters. She wrote over forty books in her lifetime.

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    Reviews for In the Closed Room

    4/5

    7 ratings2 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This was a weird story. sweet, somehow, but weird, and sad, too.
    • 4/5
      Fair Warning: one of those stars is for the physical beauty of my copy, of which I'll write more later. Frances Hodgson Burnett was the topic of my term paper for my History of Children's Literature Class, so I was allowed to read my library school's copies of her books. It was my introduction to Ms. Burnett's works besides Little Lord Fauntleroy, A Little Princess, and The Secret Garden. Our heroine is seven year-old Judith Foster, who lives in a small flat (apartment) in a workingmen's building near the elevated railroad in New York City. Her hearty and healthy parents are Jem Foster, mechanic, and his wife, Jane. Jane has a sewing machine in the flat and makes men's coats on it. Judith loves her parents and they love her, but she's not like them. Jane had an older sister who died before she was born. From what she heard about Hester, Jane suspects her frail daughter takes after her late aunt. Judith hasn't told her parents that she dreams about the aunt she never met, just as she doesn't tell them that she dreamed about a rich little girl she saw in the Park [Central Park?] months ago. The girl wants Judith to play with her.This story takes place before electric fans were available for the masses, let alone air-conditioners. Poor Mrs. Foster is having to fan herself with a newspaper as the summer gets hotter. Then Jem gets a lucky break: a summer job as a caretaker for a mansion near the Park. The house is beautiful. It'll be Mrs. Foster's job to keep it tidy -- except for one fourth-floor room that's been locked. The owners, the Haldons, left so suddenly that the house hasn't been prepared for a summer closing. How Judith manages to enter the closed room isn't explained, but the girl who wanted to play with her is there. They play together daily. Judith can't understand why the beautiful flowers from the roof garden that she made into a wreath died as soon as she left. It is a mystery, like the reason her playmate musn't be touched.Although the reader will probably have figured things out long before the mystery is solved, it's still a dear little story. I had to have this edition for the Jessie Wilcox Smith illustrations. The pages, except for the backs of the illos, are decorated with a green line border with green leaves in the corners and blossoms like the gold stamped border around the title on the cover. The decoration is extended to the title and under the page numbers on the pages. If you've seen an e-copy and are wondering how the publisher managed to stretch the story to cover pp.3-130, the answer is wide margins. Not counting the title and page numbers, the text takes up only a little over 3 & 1/2 by 2 & 1/2 inches per page.If my description of the original edition makes you wish you had a copy like it, there is a print-on-demand reprint of this edition available. I hope it's as beautiful as my copy because I don't want other Burnett fans to miss out.

    Book preview

    In the Closed Room - Frances Hodgson Burnett

    The Project Gutenberg EBook of In the Closed Room, by Frances Hodgson Burnett

    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

    Title: In the Closed Room

    Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett

    Illustrator: Jessie Wilcox Smith

    Posting Date: September 1, 2012 [EBook #6027] Release Date: July, 2004 First Posted: October 29, 2002

    Language: English

    *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE CLOSED ROOM ***

    Produced by Paul Hollander, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

    IN THE CLOSED ROOM

    by

    FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT

    Author of Little Lord Fauntleroy and The Little Princess

    Illustrations by

    Jessie Willcox Smith

    LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

    The playing today was even a lovelier, happier thing than it had ever been before . . . . Frontispiece

    She often sat curving her small long fingers backward

    They gazed as if they had known each other for ages of years

    Come and play with me

    She must go and stand at the door and press her cheek against the wood and wait—and listen

    She began to mount the stairs which led to the upper floors

    The ledge of the window was so low that a mere step took her outside

    I'm going up to play with the little girl, mother . . . You don't mind, do you?

    PART ONE

    In the fierce airless heat of the small square room the child Judith panted as she lay on her bed. Her father and mother slept near her, drowned in the heavy slumber of workers after their day's labour. Some people in the next flat were quarrelling, irritated probably by the appalling heat and their miserable helplessness against it. All the hot emanations of the sun-baked city streets seemed to combine with their clamour and unrest, and rise to the flat in which the child lay gazing at the darkness. It was situated but a few feet from the track of the Elevated Railroad and existence seemed to pulsate to the rush and roar of the demon which swept past the windows every few minutes. No one knew that Judith held the thing in horror, but it was a truth that she did. She was only seven years old, and at that age it is not easy to explain one's self so that older people can understand.

    She could only have said, I hate it. It comes so fast. It is always coming. It makes a sound as if thunder was quite close. I can never get away from it. The children in the other flats rather liked it. They hung out of the window perilously to watch it thunder past and to see the people who crowded it pressed close together in the seats, standing in the aisles, hanging on to the straps. Sometimes in the evening there were people in it who were going to the theatre, and the women and girls were dressed in light colours and wore hats covered with white feathers and flowers. At such times the children were delighted, and Judith used to hear the three in the next flat calling out to each other, That's MY lady! That's MY lady! That one's mine!

    Judith was not like the children in the other flats. She was a frail, curious creature, with silent ways and a soft voice and eyes. She liked to play by herself in a corner of the room and to talk to herself as she played. No one knew what she talked about, and in fact no one inquired. Her mother was always too busy. When she was not making men's coats by the score at the whizzing sewing machine, she was hurriedly preparing a meal which was always in danger of being late. There was the breakfast, which might not be ready in time for her husband to reach his shop when the whistle blew; there was the supper, which might not be in time to be in waiting for him when he returned in the evening. The midday meal was a trifling matter, needing no special preparation. One ate anything one could find left

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