A Little Princess
A Little Princess is Frances Hodgson Burnett's 1905 novel, an expansion of her earlier 1888 novella Sara Crewe, or What Happened at Miss Minchin's. The book opens in late Victorian London, where seven-year-old Sara Crewe arrives at Miss Minchin's Select Seminary for Young Ladies as a parlor boarder, the much-loved only daughter of a wealthy young captain in the British Indian Army. Captain Crewe leaves a lavish endowment for Sara's care and returns to his diamond mines in India. Sara is bookish, kind-hearted, and exceptionally well dressed, and Miss Minchin treats her accordingly. On Sara's eleventh birthday a telegram arrives from India: the diamond mines have failed, Sara's father has died of brain fever, and there is no money for the school. Miss Minchin moves Sara into a freezing attic and puts her to work as a scullery maid alongside the lonely housemaid Becky. The book that follows is one of the great Edwardian portraits of resilience, imagination, and a child's interior life.
Themes & atmosphere
Also by Frances Hodgson Burnett
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What you might want to know about A Little Princess
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Sent from India to a strict London boarding school, a wealthy little girl with a vivid imagination must keep her spirit and generosity intact when her fortunes change overnight.
Yes. A Little Princess is a children's classic appropriate for readers 8 and up. The themes of loss, kindness, and resilience are handled with care, and the language is accessible to middle-grade readers.
Yes. A Little Princess was first published in 1905 and entered the public domain long ago. Free editions are available legally through Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks, and similar archives.
A Little Princess was written by Frances Hodgson Burnett, published in 1905 by Xist Publishing.
A Little Princess is 224 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, A Little Princess takes most readers 3 to 5 hours to finish.
A Little Princess is a standalone novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, not part of a series.
A Little Princess is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.