The Shocking Secret of A Lady of Quality: During a confrontation, Clorinda, the heroine, whacks the villian over the head with the weighted end of a riding crop and kills him. She neither shrieks nor faints. She shoves him into a concealed spot in the parlor until night, then hauls him to the distant reaches of the ancient house's cellars and arranges to have the drafty, smelly old tunnels walled off while she is on her honeymoon.She lives happily ever after, married to the man of her choice, and does many good works for the people the villian had wronged. Her adoring husband doesn't seem to know, and the one person who knows, her equally adoring sister, reveals the secret to Clorinda on her deathbed. Crime (or self-defense) pays.However, in the companion book with the story of the husband, (His Grace of Ormonde) it is revealed that the husband knew about the murder all along.

My Robin: September 1912 ~ Frederick A Stokes ~ 42 pages, color frontis and b+w illustrations by Alfred Brennan. 
This is the story of the author's friendship with a real robin who was the basis for the robin in THE SECRET GARDEN. 

The Secret Garden ~ Reading Guide
Plus many film adaptations of the above works

Frances Eliza Hodgson was born in Manchester, England, on November 24, 1849. Her mother moved to Knoxville, Tenessee in 1865. Miss Hodgson began writing for magazines soon after. Her first widely-known story appeared in "Scribner's Magazine" in 1872. Frances married Dr. L. M. Burnett of Washington D.C. in 1873. In 1898 she divorced Dr. Burnett and married Mr. Stephen Townsend in 1900. Her reputation as a novelist was made with her story of Lancashire life, That Lass o' Lowrie's. A number of other works followed, with Through One Administration and A Lady of Quality as the most notable. In 1886 she published the Little Lord Fauntleroy, which was dramatized during her life and (now safely out of copyright) continues as videos and movies. Her children's books, including the marvelous Secret Garden and Sara Crew (later rewritten to become: A Little Princess) are what she is best known for today, but her romance novels were very popular during her lifetime. A Lady of Quality has a surprising plot twist, one totally unexpected for that era.

Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924) was a born storyteller. Even when she was a young child living in Manchester, England, her greatest pleasure was in making up stories and acting them out, using her dolls as characters. When she was sixteen, she was brought from England to Tennessee by her fatherless, poverty stricken family. There she started to write stories in a cold little attic room, and they eventually made her rich and famous. She published over fifty books, but the most beloved are Little Lord Fauntleroy, The Secret Garden, and Little Princess. She said of herself, "With the best that was in me, I have tried to write more happiness into the world."

"Burnham was a scout. He combined his extraordinary natural abilities, with the teachings of an old Indian scout who had served under and learned from men like Kit Carson and John C. Fremont. He became a priceless, silent, invisible eyes and ears for both the American and British military during some of our Indian and their Matabele and Boer Wars." ~ Ross Seyfreid, in the "Introduction" to the 1994 reprint of Frederick Russell Burnham, Scouting on Two Continents, Prescott, Arizona: The Wolfe Publishing Company, 1994.

From Frederick Russell Burnham, Scouting on Two Continents, 1926
Extract from a letter from Lt. Gen Sir Robert Baden-Powell, K.C.V.O., K.C.B., written from Africa to his mother in 1896:
"12th June, 1896.... Burnham is a most delightful companion ... amusing, interesting, and most instructive. Having seen service against the Red Indians he brings quite a new experience to bear on the Scouting work here. And while he talks away there's not a thing escapes his quick roving eye, whether it is on the horizon or at his feet."

From William Hillcourt, Baden-Powell: The Two Lives of a Hero, 1964
"Before losing Burnham's services, Sir Frederick decided that the American should take his chief of staff into the Matopos to acquaint him with the territory. Their reconnaissance turned into a three-day expedition on horseback during which Burnham and Baden-Powell climbed in among the kopjes that commanded a view of the enemy's positions and of the Matopos in general ('Awful country—weird, jumbled mass of bush and boulders and jagged mountains'). Baden-Powell spent much of the time drawing maps and making panoramic field sketches of the landscape, indicating enemy caves and strongholds. For the rest, he picked up from Burnham a number of scouting tricks the American had used in the 1893 war against the Matabele and as a U.S. Army scout fighting in the Apache Indian wars. The two men found they had much in common and struck up a firm friendship. For hours they shared their experiences and innermost thoughts as they lay, after a day's reconnaissance, beside a tiny concealed camp fire under the stars of the African sky, before turning in for a few hours' sleep on what B-P considered the best of beds: 'the veld tempered with a blanket and a saddle'. Baden-Powell had hoped to do much further scouting with Burnham but never had the chance. Within a few days B-P was back at his desk and Burnham had left for his special assignment."

From Robert Baden-Powell, The Matabele Campaign, 1896:
"13th June.--At 4 a.m. we were off again, Burnham and I and Trooper Bradley of the Mounted Police, who knew this part of the country well.... We got on well together, and he much approved of the results of your early development in me of the art of 'inductive reasoning'--in fact, before we had examined and worried out many little indications in the course of our ride, he had nick-named me 'Sherlock Holmes'. [P.S.--We had planned to do much scouting together in the future, but, unfortunately, it never came off, as he was soon afterwards compelled, for domestic reasons, to go down country.]"

The ribbon at the left displays the colors of the Distinguished Service Order. The D.S.O. was awarded to Major Burnham in recognition of his service as Chief of Scouts to Lord Roberts (Commander-in-Chief South Africa) during the Boer War, 1899-1902. The photograph of Major Burnham was taken after his service in the South African War. It shows him in British uniform wearing the Distinguished Service Order, the Queen's South African Medal and the British South Africa Company Medal for the Matabele Campaign. 

Tarzan of the Apes Illustrated Biblio
Tarzan of the Apes: Online eText Edition
ERB Public Domain Editions in eText

To us who have heard these memoirs and anecdotes more than once from the lips of our father and mother, they might be, if to anyone, "old stories;" yet to them still clings, for us, all the zest and freshness and infinite interest of a first telling, and so I believe that generations yet but dreamed of who may trace their origin to this strong man and his sweetly noble mate, will find an equal, possibly a greater interest in them; and that they will be thankful for even this brief withdrawal of the impenetrable curtain of time which shall hide from them forever the greater portion of the lives and loves and interests of their forebears. 

To those who come after -- a long time after -- this volume will tend to make George and Mary Burroughs more than merely a  rather vague conception of two names. It will bring you in whose veins flows the red blood of the Puritan and the Pioneer, bequeathed to you, uncontaminated, by these two, a livlier sense of reality of these ancestors of yours. It will depict them as living, breathing people, who lived and loved as you, let us hope, shall live and love, through fifty years of prosperity and adversity; a personification of what might justly be emblazoned upon the arms of the Burroughs -- Loyalty and Constancy. 

As a second resort she began to write at the impressive rate of as many as four books a year. Her romance stories were first serialized in newspapers with great success before the publishing company Grosset and Dunlap published them in low cost hard cover editions. Soon her books were made into movies and she became a very well know figure in the world of 1920s pop culture. Her books are romances which all take place during the year they were written. They can serve as a great glimpse of life in the 1920s. Many famous actors, films, and figures are mentioned during the stories. Also used is the inventive 1920s slang.
Wikipedia Reference

Letters (from the personal aide to President Theodore Roosevelt).  (NY, Doubleday, l924); The Letters of Archie Butt, Personal Military Aide to President Roosevelt. Edited by Lawrence F. Abbott. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page and Company, 1924. Butt's letters describing the last year of the Roosevelt administration.
Daughter Joan inscribed this: "Merry Christmas to Papa with a world of love from Joan December 25, 1924." 

Other:
Taft and Roosevelt: The Intimate Letters Of Archie Butt, Military Aide: 1930 Doubleday, Doran & Co.

Archibald Willingham Butt (1866-1912) served as a U. S. Army officer in the Philippines (1900-1903) and Cuba (1906-1908) and was appointed personal aide to U. S. presidents Theodore Roosevelt (1908-1909) and William H. Taft (1909-). Letters are primarily written by Butt to his mother, Pamela R. B. Butt, to his sister, Julia Butt (Mrs. John M. Slaton), and to Clara Butt; a  few letters are to Butt from others, including Julia Ward Howe, author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Letters date from 8 April 1908 to 27 February 1912. Topics discussed are Butt's service as a presidential aide; Presidents Roosevelt, Taft, and other officials; the personal relationship between Taft and Roosevelt and the Taft and Roosevelt families; social life in Washington, D.C.; life in the White House, including notes on its furnishings, portraits painted of Roosevelt and Taft, and visiting dignitaries. The letters offer a fascinating insight into the life of Theodore Roosevelt and about the political climate in Washington DC.

The 92 letters featured in the book offer a fascinating insight into the life of Theodore Roosevelt and about the political climate in Washington DC. The letters, which are much like a diary, were written by Butt to his mother and, after her death in October 1908, to his sister-in-law, Clara. All of the letters were written in 1908 and early 1909. Butt, an Army officer, was military aide first to President Theodore Roosevelt and then to President William Taft. On April 14, 1912, Butt was at sea aboard the Titanic returning from a European vacation that Taft had insisted he take. President Taft later said: "When I heard that part of the ship's company had gone down, I gave up hope for the rescue of Major Butt, unless by accident. I knew that he would certainly remain on the ship's deck until every duty had been performed and every sacrifice made that properly fell on one charged, as he would feel himself charged, with responsibility for the rescue of others." Taft was correct. Butt did not survive the sinking.

TAFT'S TRIBUTE TO BUTT: WASHINGTON From the Chicago Tribune, April 19, 1912  - President Taft was notified as soon as the Carpathia docked and the corrected list of suvivors was made public that Major Butt was not on board. With all hope for the rescue of his aid abandoned, the President to-day issued a statement showing the high regard in which he held him and his beliefs that he died as a man should die in the face of such a disaster as that of the Titanic. The President said: "Major Archie Butt was my miliatry aid. He was like a member of my family and I feel his loss as if he had been a younger brother. The chief trait of his character was loyalty to his ideals, his cloth, and his friends. His character was a smiple one, in the sense that he was incapable of intrigue or insincerity. He was gentle and considerate to every one, high and low. He never lost under any conditions, his sense of proper regard to what he considered the respet due to constitued authority. He was an earnest member of the Episcopal Church and loved that communion. He was a soldier every inch of himself a most competent and successful Quatermaster and a deovtee of his profession." "After I heard that part of the ship's company had gone down I gave up hope for the rescue of Major Butt, unless by accident. I knew that he would certainly remain on the ship's deck until every duty had been performed and every sacrifice made that properly fell on one charged as he would feel himself charged with responsibility for the rescue of others." "He leaves the widest circle of friends, whose memory of him is sweet in every particular. Whatever was the mission of Major Butt from the President to Rome and all sorts of false and conflicting stories have been printed about it - the President is advised in a general way of its outcome by the letter he received yesterday from the Major dated at Rome and mailed just before he sailed. What is in this letter is closely guarded. It is understood however that in it the Major revealed the results of his mission and stated the substance of what was in the letters which he carred and which probably went down with him on the Titanic. A belief held by some that Major Butt handed letters in his possion to some one who escaped, with a request to deliever them to the President is considered improbable. Gen Clarence R. Edwards, Chief of the Bureau of Insular Affairs, a close personal friend of Maj Butt, who frequently played golf in foresomes with Major Butt, President Taft and Vice President Sherman said to-night: "Maj Butt died like the fine, big man we all knew him to be. He had the very essence and traditions of the service as much as any man I ever knew who was not a West Pointed. He was absolutely devoted to the President. No aid de camp in the world was ever more devoted." "The best thing about Maj Butt was the fact that he was always cheerful, loyal and discreet. He did not advance his opinions but when asked for, he gave them. He had a jolly sense of humor all the time and could not be angered by being guyed or joked."
ROOSEVELT'S PRAISE FOR BUTT: LINDSBERG, Kan. April 19 - Col. Roosevelt to-day paid a tribute to the heroism of Major Butt, who perished in the Titanic disaster. "Major Butt was the highest type of officer and gentleman", said Col. Roosevelt. "He met his end as an officer and gentleman should givingup his own life that others might be saved. I and my family all loved him sincerely."

Web Refs
Manuscript Sources For Women's History
On the Titanic: Archie Butt
Butt's Descriptions
Hundreds Weep For Archie Butt