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A Little Princess
A Little Princess is a work by British-American author Frances Hodgson Burnett, presented as a 1888 novella, a 1902 play and the 1905 eponymous children's novel. All three versions tell the story of Sara Crewe, a wealthy young girl who is initially welcomed as a privileged student at an exclusive girls’ boarding school and who, after losing her fortune, is forced to work there as a scullery maid.
The story was first published as the novella Sara Crewe: or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's, which was serialized in St. Nicholas Magazine from December 1887, and published in book form in 1888. According to Burnett, after she composed the 1902 play A Little Un-fairy Princess based on this work, her publisher asked that she expand the story into a full-length novel with "the things and people that had been left out before". The novel was published by Charles Scribner's Sons (also publisher of St. Nicholas Magazine) with illustrations by Ethel Franklin Betts and the full title A Little Princess: Being the Whole Story of Sara Crewe Now Being Told for the First Time.
Captain Ralph Crewe, a wealthy English widower, has been raising his only child, a beautiful daughter named Sara, in India where he is stationed with the British Army. Because the Indian climate is considered too harsh for their children, British families living there traditionally send their children to boarding school back home in England. The Captain enrolls his seven-year-old daughter at an all-girls boarding school in London and pays the haughty headmistress, Miss Minchin, for special treatment and exceptional luxuries for Sara. Miss Minchin openly fawns over Sara for her money, but is secretly envious and dislikes Sara almost from the outset.
Intelligent, imaginative and kind, Sara sees through flattery and remains unspoiled; she embraces the status of a 'princess' accorded by the other students, and lives up to it with her compassion and generosity. She befriends Ermengarde, the school dunce; Lottie, a four-year-old student given to tantrums; and Becky, the stunted scullery maid.
Four years later, Sara's eleventh birthday is celebrated at Miss Minchin's with a lavish party. Just as it ends, Miss Minchin learns of Captain Crewe's unfortunate demise due to jungle fever. Furthermore, the previously wealthy captain had lost his entire fortune by investing in a friend's diamond mines. Preteen Sara is left an orphan and a pauper with nowhere to go, while Miss Minchin is left with a sizable debt for Sara's school fees and luxuries. Infuriated and pitiless, yet aware of the reputational damage to the school if she turns Sara out, Miss Minchin takes away all of Sara's possessions (except for an old black frock and her doll, Emily), and makes her live in a cold and poorly furnished attic, forcing her to earn her keep by working as a servant.
For the next two years Miss Minchin starves and overworks Sara, turning her into a menial servant and unpaid tutor, with the prospect of turning her into an underpaid teacher when she is old enough. Most of the students take their tone from Miss Minchin, but Sara is consoled by her few friends and uses her imagination to cope with her bleak existence. She continues to be kind and polite to everyone, even her abusers, in the belief that conduct, not money, make a true princess. On one of the bleakest winter days when she herself is ravenous, she finds a coin and buys six buns, but gives a starving beggar-child five of them because the child is hungrier than she is. This act of generosity impresses the baker, who takes the beggar-child in.
During this time Mr. Carrisford moves into the house next to the seminary. He is an extremely wealthy invalid from abroad and retains Mr. Carmichael, a solicitor who lives nearby. Sara has often observed Mr. Carmichael's big and loving family, whom she dubs the "Large Family" – while they are equally curious about her and call her "the little girl who is not a beggar". Mr. Carrisford is revealed to have been Captain Crewe's partner in the diamond mine venture. Thinking all was lost and while both men were suffering from severe illness, Carrisford abandoned Captain Crewe and wandered in a delirium. When Carrisford recovered, he discovered that Captain Crewe had died – but the mines were now very valuable. Now extremely rich man, but suffering pangs of conscience, he returns to England and makes it his mission to find Sara, though he does not know where to look.
Meanwhile Ram Dass, Mr Carrisford's Indian servant, climbs across the roof to retrieve a pet monkey which has taken refuge in Sara's attic. He sees the poor condition of her room and, touched by her courtesy and demeanor, sets out to discover her history. To distract his master from his own sorrows, he tells Mr Carrisford about the "little girl in the attic". Between them they devise a scheme whereby Mr Carrisford becomes "The Magician", a mysterious benefactor who transforms her barren existence with gifts of food and warmth and books – sneaked in by Ram Dass.
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A Little Princess
A Little Princess is a work by British-American author Frances Hodgson Burnett, presented as a 1888 novella, a 1902 play and the 1905 eponymous children's novel. All three versions tell the story of Sara Crewe, a wealthy young girl who is initially welcomed as a privileged student at an exclusive girls’ boarding school and who, after losing her fortune, is forced to work there as a scullery maid.
The story was first published as the novella Sara Crewe: or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's, which was serialized in St. Nicholas Magazine from December 1887, and published in book form in 1888. According to Burnett, after she composed the 1902 play A Little Un-fairy Princess based on this work, her publisher asked that she expand the story into a full-length novel with "the things and people that had been left out before". The novel was published by Charles Scribner's Sons (also publisher of St. Nicholas Magazine) with illustrations by Ethel Franklin Betts and the full title A Little Princess: Being the Whole Story of Sara Crewe Now Being Told for the First Time.
Captain Ralph Crewe, a wealthy English widower, has been raising his only child, a beautiful daughter named Sara, in India where he is stationed with the British Army. Because the Indian climate is considered too harsh for their children, British families living there traditionally send their children to boarding school back home in England. The Captain enrolls his seven-year-old daughter at an all-girls boarding school in London and pays the haughty headmistress, Miss Minchin, for special treatment and exceptional luxuries for Sara. Miss Minchin openly fawns over Sara for her money, but is secretly envious and dislikes Sara almost from the outset.
Intelligent, imaginative and kind, Sara sees through flattery and remains unspoiled; she embraces the status of a 'princess' accorded by the other students, and lives up to it with her compassion and generosity. She befriends Ermengarde, the school dunce; Lottie, a four-year-old student given to tantrums; and Becky, the stunted scullery maid.
Four years later, Sara's eleventh birthday is celebrated at Miss Minchin's with a lavish party. Just as it ends, Miss Minchin learns of Captain Crewe's unfortunate demise due to jungle fever. Furthermore, the previously wealthy captain had lost his entire fortune by investing in a friend's diamond mines. Preteen Sara is left an orphan and a pauper with nowhere to go, while Miss Minchin is left with a sizable debt for Sara's school fees and luxuries. Infuriated and pitiless, yet aware of the reputational damage to the school if she turns Sara out, Miss Minchin takes away all of Sara's possessions (except for an old black frock and her doll, Emily), and makes her live in a cold and poorly furnished attic, forcing her to earn her keep by working as a servant.
For the next two years Miss Minchin starves and overworks Sara, turning her into a menial servant and unpaid tutor, with the prospect of turning her into an underpaid teacher when she is old enough. Most of the students take their tone from Miss Minchin, but Sara is consoled by her few friends and uses her imagination to cope with her bleak existence. She continues to be kind and polite to everyone, even her abusers, in the belief that conduct, not money, make a true princess. On one of the bleakest winter days when she herself is ravenous, she finds a coin and buys six buns, but gives a starving beggar-child five of them because the child is hungrier than she is. This act of generosity impresses the baker, who takes the beggar-child in.
During this time Mr. Carrisford moves into the house next to the seminary. He is an extremely wealthy invalid from abroad and retains Mr. Carmichael, a solicitor who lives nearby. Sara has often observed Mr. Carmichael's big and loving family, whom she dubs the "Large Family" – while they are equally curious about her and call her "the little girl who is not a beggar". Mr. Carrisford is revealed to have been Captain Crewe's partner in the diamond mine venture. Thinking all was lost and while both men were suffering from severe illness, Carrisford abandoned Captain Crewe and wandered in a delirium. When Carrisford recovered, he discovered that Captain Crewe had died – but the mines were now very valuable. Now extremely rich man, but suffering pangs of conscience, he returns to England and makes it his mission to find Sara, though he does not know where to look.
Meanwhile Ram Dass, Mr Carrisford's Indian servant, climbs across the roof to retrieve a pet monkey which has taken refuge in Sara's attic. He sees the poor condition of her room and, touched by her courtesy and demeanor, sets out to discover her history. To distract his master from his own sorrows, he tells Mr Carrisford about the "little girl in the attic". Between them they devise a scheme whereby Mr Carrisford becomes "The Magician", a mysterious benefactor who transforms her barren existence with gifts of food and warmth and books – sneaked in by Ram Dass.