A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett was first published as a book in 1905. However, it is actually an expansion of a serialized short story that was originally titled "Sara Crewe: or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's" published in St. Nicholas Magazine in 1887 and 1888. After Burnett put together a play from "Sara Crewe", her publishers requested that she expand the story into a novel including "the things and people that had been left out before".
And aren't we all glad she did? This children's novel has been among educators' favorites since its publication, and it is widely considered to be one of the best children's novels of all time (along with Burnett's other novel The Secret Garden which I haven't gotten to yet). I can't even believe it's taken me this long in life to get to it, especially considering that I've owned and watched the two most popular movie adaptations of it many times.
And speaking of the movies, naturally I watched them (back-to-back) after finishing the book so I'll be discussing a few key spoilers in this post. Don't say I didn't warn you.
In A Little Princess, we meet clever little Sara Crewe who is being brought to Miss Minchin's boarding school in London by her widowed father. She and her papa are the best of mates, but it was widely believed that the weather in India (where they lived) wasn't good for little girls hence her relocation to the highly recommended school. Her father instructs Miss Minchin to spare no expense in little Sara's upbringing and education and assures her that his pockets are deep enough to cover any and every little thing Sara desires. You'd expect her to be a hopelessly spoiled brat, but Sara is actually the sweetest, kindest, most generous little girl and she befriends and helps all the little outcasts in Miss Minchin's school.
Through a series of unfortunate events, we learn (at Sara's extravagant birthday party no less) that her father has died and left her completely penniless at which point Miss Minchin takes away all her things, banishes her to the attic, and works her almost to death. Despite her tragic downfall and awful mistreatment, Sara is determined to behave like a little princess and (mostly) manages to keep her sweetness.
In the end, Crewe's friend and business partner is able to find Sara and restore her wealth to her tenfold. He adopts her, Miss Minchin gets her comeuppance, and it's truly a happily ever after.
Now let's talk about how the movies held up compared to my actual reading of A Little Princess starting with the 1939 version starring Shirley Temple as Sara. Let me tell you: I am a fan of Shirley Temple. I own no less than 14 of her films on DVD and some of my sweetest memories in life were curling up with my Grandmother to watch Shirley Temple sing and dance. It's hard not to adore her in just about any role, but Sara Crewe she is not. The Little Princess never was one of my favorites from her, and now having read the novel, it's even less so. While they did keep the basic idea of the book (riches to rags back to riches), they drastically changed the ending having Sara be reunited with her father who was wounded in the Boer War, and they added an entire subplot of a teacher's romance with the school's riding master which Sara helps along in any way she can. (And this movie came out during that wonderful time in film where there was often a wacky dream sequence which usually came out of nowhere. I can pinpoint this scene in the film being the reason it's never been my favorite Shirley Temple movie.) The whole thing just comes off pretty ridiculous and honestly, Shirley Temple was a little too old for this role at the time of this film. Kindof a bummer, but there you have it.
In the 1995 version starring Liesel Matthews as Sara, they stuck to this same plot of having Captain Crewe going to war (only it was WWI in this case) and being reunited with Sara in the end in the most dramatic way possible. While I don't appreciate the liberties taken in either movies' cases, there is still something so lovable about the 1995 version. For one thing, it's gorgeous. Beautifully filmed, beautiful score, just an absolute pleasure to watch. For another thing, this movie honed in on Sara's relationships with the other little girls and did a fantastic job of it which was a big part of the story. Her friendships with Becky, Lottie, and Ermengarde were spot on in this adaptation, and Liesel Matthews was a much better Sara Crewe than Shirley Temple was though neither girl fit my mental picture of what Sara Crewe ought to look like.
All in all, this book is a can't miss. It was so sweet, and I loved it. While I did come into it with some preconceived ideas based on my history with the movies, the book still came out much better and I would highly recommend it. If I don't get to The Secret Garden this year, it will definitely go on next year's list. As for the movies, as much as it pains me to say it, skip Shirley Temple but for the love of cinema: watch the '95 version.
Have you read anything by Frances Hodgson Burnett? If you've read A Little Princess and The Secret Garden, which did you like better? And have you seen the movie adaptations? (Feel free to throw Shirley Temple some love in the comments. My personal favorites are Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and Little Miss Broadway, and I feel a Shirley Temple marathon coming on soon with all this quarantining and "social distancing".)
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