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A Little Princess
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A Little Princess is a 1905 children's novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It is a revised and expanded version of Burnett's 1888 serialized novel entitled Sara Crewe: or, What happened at Miss Minchin's boarding school, which was published in St. Nicholas Magazine.
ara Crewe, or What Happened At Miss Minchin's, the work on which A Little Princess is based, was first written as a serialized novella.
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A Little Princess is a 1905 children's novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It is a revised and expanded version of Burnett's 1888 serialized novel entitled Sara Crewe: or, What happened at Miss Minchin's boarding school, which was published in St. Nicholas Magazine.
Source material
Sara Crewe, or What Happened At Miss Minchin's, the work on which A Little Princess is based, was first written as a serialized novella. It was published in St. Nicholas Magazine in 1888, after a period Burnett spent travelling across Europe with her family.
The novella appears to have been inspired in part by Charlotte Brontė's unfinished novel, Emma, the first two chapters of which were published in Cornhill Magazine in 1860, featuring a rich heiress with a mysterious past who is apparently abandoned at a boarding school.
The thread of the book is evident in the novella, in which Sara Crewe is left at Miss Minchin's, loses her father, is worked as a drudge, and is surprised with the kindness of an Indian gentleman who turns out to be Captain Crewe's friend. However, at just over one-third the length of the later book, the novella is much less detailed.
Many of the characters in the book are loosely defined or not at all. The students are treated as a group; only Ermengarde is mentioned by name, and her interaction with Sara is limited to Sara's asking her for books. Much of the Large Family is only mentioned by name, and Sara only observes them from afar; the father is not linked to Mr. Carrisford until the end.
Many events in the book also do not happen. Captain Crewe's death is in the first chapter, so all of Sara's life as a show pupil – including her evident kindness even when wealthy and her gift for storytelling – is unmentioned. Indeed, the kindness of Sara in the novella is only substantiated by the incident in which she buys buns for the street urchin Anne.
Generally, the novel expanded on things in the novella; Captain Crewe's "investments" are only referred to briefly and generally, and much of the information revealed in conversations in the novel is simply summarized. However, there are details in the novella which were dropped for the novel. While a drudge, Sara is said to have frequented a library, in which she read books about women in rough circumstances being rescued by princes and other powerful men. In addition, Mr. Carrisford's illness is specified as liver trouble.
After writing Sara Crewe, Burnett returned to the material in 1902, penning the three-act stage play A Little Un-fairy Princess, which ran in London over the autumn of that year. Around the time it transferred to New York City at the start of 1903, however, the title was shortened to the one with which it became famous: A Little Princess. (It was A Little Princess in London, but The Little Princess in New York.)
The play was a success on Broadway, and it is probable that this triumph is what led Burnett to revise it yet again, this time as an expanded, full-length novel. Both versions of the book remain in print, although A Little Princess is better known.
Summary of the Revised Edition
Seven-year-old Sara Crewe is sent to live at Miss Minchin's boarding school in London. Her father, Captain Crewe, is a doting young man who leaves instructions that his daughter is to be given a private room with a parlour, a maid, and anything else she might desire in his absence. The school's headmistress, Miss Minchin, privately believes that Sara is intolerably spoiled due to her father's indulgence, but Minchin is impressed by Captain Crewe's fortune and quickly turns the well-dressed, well-mannered Sara into a show pupil.
Far from being spoiled, Sara is a bright, imaginative, and empathetic child who loves books and storytelling. In short order she befriends even the most outcast of her fellow pupils, including the scullery maid Becky. Miss Minchin does not approve of such friendships, but she is willing to tolerate them for fear that Sara will complain to her father. A few of the older students are openly jealous of Sara's fortune and give her the mocking nickname of "Princess Sara" in reference to her wealth and perfect manners. The nickname first embarrasses Sara, but soon she adopts it as a reminder to be generous to others.
On Sara's eleventh birthday, news arrives that Captain Crewe has died in India, having lost all his fortune due to investments made by a friend. Sara is left a pauper, her school bills unpaid, and Miss Minchin, now saddled with a student she has never liked, turns Sara into a servant in order to pay off her debts. Sara is given a room in the attic next to Becky, the scullery maid she befriended.
For the next three years, Sara is overworked and half-starved. In her loneliness, she uses her imagination to comfort herself, turning her attic room into the Bastille and Becky into a fellow prisoner. Sara does her best to keep up with her studies and to remember her good breeding and manners, even though this makes her unpopular with her fellow servants and with Miss Minchin, who believes that Sara has not yet realised her new station. Sara tries harder than ever to pretend she is a princess in order to keep herself from despair, but discovers that even her imagination is not enough to pretend away cold and hunger.
A second section of the story develops when Sara sees a new family moving into the house across the street. Having been born in India, she recognises many of the furnishings as Indian and the master's servant as an Indian lascar. Upon learning that the master of the house is ill with the same "brain-fever" that killed her own father, Sara begins to pity him and weaves him into her fantasies, referring to him in her mind as "the Indian gentleman." The Indian lascar takes up residence in the attic across from Sara's own, and she is able to speak to him in his native Hindustani. Intrigued, the lascar, with the help of his master's solicitor, slips into Sara's attic while she is asleep and leave her gifts of warm bedding, food, and books. Sara awakens the next morning thinking that "the Magic" of her fantasies has somehow been made real.
Everyday, the comforts in the attic are added to, and Sara shares them with Becky. Finally a delivery of new clothes comes for Sara, and Miss Minchin, worried that someone has revived an interest in Sara's case, allows her to attend school with the other students. When Sara returns to her attic, she finds that the lascar's pet monkey has escaped and taken refuge in her room. The following morning, she crosses the street to return the monkey and to at last meet "the Indian gentleman", whose real name is Carrisford. Carrisford enquires Sara's name and circumstances, only to realise that Sara is the formerly missing child of Captain Crewe. Carrisford is the friend who lost Captain Crewe's fortune, only to have it revived after Crewe's death. Knowing that Crewe had a child, Carrisford has spent the last three years searching boarding schools across the Continent for Sara.
Miss Minchin, upon learning that Sara's fortune has been returned to her, attempts to convince Sara into returning to her school. But Sara has already told her new guardian about Miss Minchin's avarice and cruel treatment. Sara sends for Becky to come and live with her as her own maid, and Miss Minchin is humiliated.
New musical versions
Due in part to the novel's public domain status, several musical versions of A Little Princess have emerged in recent years, including:
- A Little Princess, Princess Musicals Book and Lyrics by Michael Hjort, Music by Camille Curtis.
- Sara Crewe, premiered May 2007 at Needham (Boston, MA) Community Theater, first full production November 2007 at the Blackwell Playhouse, Marietta, Georgia; music, lyrics, and book by Miriam Raiken-Kolb and Elizabeth Ellor
- Sara Crewe: A Little Princess, Wheelock Family Theatre, Boston, 2006. Music and libretto by Susan Kosoff and Jane Staab
- A Little Princess, TheatreWorks, Palo Alto, California, premiered 2004. Music by Andrew Lippa; book by Brian Crawley; directed by Susan H. Schulman
- A Little Princess, Wings Theatre, New York, 2003. Book and Direction by Robert Sickinger; music and lyrics by Mel Atkey, musical director Mary Ann Ivan
- A Little Princess, Children's Musical Theater San Jose, May 2002. Book and lyrics by Tegan McLane, music by Richard Link.
Some of these productions have made significant changes to the book, story and characters, most notably the Sickinger/Atkey/Ivan version, which moves the action to Civil War-era America.
- Princesses, a 2004 musical currently in development for Broadway, features students at a boarding school presenting a production of A Little Princess. Music and book by Cheri Steinkellner and Bill Steinkellner; lyrics and direction by David Zippel.
Related books
In 1995, Apple published a series of three books written by Gabrielle Charbonnet. The "Princess" series was an updated version of the classic, with the title character named Molly, rather than Sara. Molly Stewart's father was a famous film director who left his daughter in a posh upscale boarding school. There were three books in the series, which ended in a similar way as the original.
- Molly's Heart
- A Room on the Attic
- Home At Last
Film and television adaptations
Film
Some of the film versions made significant changes to the story, setting, and characters. In the 1939 version an entire subplot is devoted to Sara's abetting of a forbidden romance between the school's riding master and an under-teacher. The 1995 version moves the action to New York City during World War I and generally follows the storyline of the 1939 version. In both the 1939 and 1995 films, Miss Minchin becomes aware of Sara's transformed attic room and tries to have her arrested for theft. Additionally, both versions change the book's ending completely, revealing that Sara's father is alive and having him recover from amnesia on sight of her.
- 1917 version: Mary Pickford as Sara and Katherine Griffith as Miss Minchin.
Television
- 1973 version: Deborah Makepeace as Sara and Ruth Dunning as Miss Minchin. This was very faithful to the novel.
- Soko no Strain, a 2006 anime that completely reworks the story into a mecha series about "Sara Werec", whose ability to pilot a mecha is taken away when her brother, Ralph, betrays and disgraces the family.
External links
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