The Secret Garden and Professor Meadow

[steepholm]

Much has been written about The Secret Garden and Froebel, mens sana in corpore sano, and all that jazz, but as I was marking an essay just now, it occurred to me that Archibald Craven may be one of the earliest representations of Münchausen by proxy - more than 65 years before Roy Meadow first described the condition. Has this ever been remarked? (This is not necessarily to weigh in on whether the condition actually exists, of course. Last time I looked, Mr Craven was a fiction, and for all I know his syndrome is too.)

P.S. The perils of the spell checker! One of my students just wrote that The Secret Garden was written by Frames Bennett.

Comments

[sovay]

I had to watch four different versions recently for work reasons, and I think that was my favourite overall.

It took me years to realize that I had not, as I thought, discovered Derek Jacobi with I, Claudius in high school; I had seen him years before as Archibald Craven in a television adaptation of The Secret Garden from 1987. It had a very odd frame, post-World War I. I've always wanted to see it again, just to find out if it was any good.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I actually have that on VHS - you're welcome to it, if you'd like! (I can't play it easily as it's in a North American format.) Not only is Derek Jacobi Mr Craven, but the grown-up Colin is played by a very young Colin Firth. Dickon, somewhat inevitably, falls victim to the guns of the Somme.