Secret forbidden love, secret wife in the attic, secret past griefs—ahh, how I love strange juicy secrets. All the better if they take place in a charismatic old house in Britain. (Between Burnett, Shakespeare, and the Brontës, along with my inborn appreciation of cool rainy climates, I also developed a heavy-duty Britophilia before long. By the time I realized what a cliché this was for an American, it was too late; I couldn’t be cured.)
Incidentally, it took me much too long to notice that The Secret Garden is essentially Jane Eyre for children: big Yorkshire house out on the moors, to which a lonely orphan girl is sent, with family members living there that no one talks about, and a gloomy master, all of which is set right by the pluck and the good heart of the girl—definitely some similarities. No wonder I love them both.
When I stumbled upon E.M. Forster’s A Room with a View my freshman year of college, my heart broadened into a deeper and more mature, but no less swoony, level of love. England, romance, flowers, lovely language—it has everything. Not to mention a fabulous film adaptation starring wee eighteen-year-old Helena Bonham Carter.