CHAPTER 1:
The omniscient narrator of The Secret Garden begins by enumerating the many defects of Mary Lennox, the ten-year-old girl who is the novel's protagonist. Mary is ugly, with skin made yellow by constant illness. At the outset of the novel, she is living in India with her parents, who have neither time nor affection for her. Her mother, who had never wanted a child at all, has entrusted Mary to the care of a number of Indian servants, whose only instructions are to keep the unloved child out of her mother's sight. Mrs. Lennox is described as a famously beautiful, elegant woman, who does nothing but attend fashionable parties. Though everyone is acquainted with and admires Mrs. Lennox, nearly no one knows that she has a little …ver más…

It is in Mrs. Medlock's company that Mary first begins to feel lonely.
Mrs. Medlock and her charge take a train to Yorkshire, the site of Misselthwaite Manor. Mrs. Medlock passes the journey by telling Mary dismal stories about the house and its master. Archibald Craven is indeed a hunchback, and a widower; the death of his lovely wife had been, for him, the end of any possibility of happiness. Most of his house's hundred rooms are now kept locked and shuttered. To Mary, her uncle's story seems like a fairytale, or "like something in a book." As she contemplates this, it begins to rain, and Mary is lulled to sleep.
CHAPTER 3:
When Mary awakes, the train has arrived in Yorkshire. She and Mrs. Medlock board a carriage there, which takes them through a village and over Missel Moor, until they finally reach the manor. There, the travelers are greeted by Mr. Pitcher, her uncle's manservant, who tells them that Mr. Craven does not wish to see them. Medlock shuts Mary up in a room by herself, and reminds her again that she is not to explore the house or its grounds, as Mr. Craven "won't have it." Mary's contrariness reaches new levels of intensity.
CHAPTER 4:
Martha, one of the manor's numerous maidservants, greets Mary when she awakens on her first morning at Misselthwaite. Mary tells Martha how much she hates the moor; Martha replies that she will come to love it, just as Martha does herself. The housemaid is quite casual in her speech, and talks to the