A Little Princess is one of my all-time favorite books. I think I read it at least once a year. When I read it for the first time, I loved the ending so much that I just kept reading the last few chapters over and over again. I also consider myself something of a Shirley Temple fan. I couldn't honestly tell you whether I read the book first or saw the film, but suffice it to say I grew up with both versions of the story. Who better to judge this "Battle of the Little Princesses"?Sara Crewe or What Happened at Miss Minchin's was first published by Frances Hodgson Burnett in 1888, then revised, expanded, and republished in 1905 as A Little Princess: Being the Whole Story of Sara Crewe Now Told for the First Time. Burnett (1849-1924) had been raised in Manchester, England, but her family moved to America when she was a teen. While she was a schoolteacher in Tennessee she began submitting stories to women's magazines. She married in 1873 and would have two sons, the youngest of whom became the inspiration for her classic story Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886).
Mary Pickford made he first film version of THE LITTLE PRINCESS in 1917, but my personal favorite is the 1939 Shirley Temple adaptation, which aired on TCM over the weekend. With the world on the brink of another world war, Burnett's original story was altered to fit the changing political climate. The basic premise of a little rich girl sent to school in England remained the same, but with some very significant differences.
