A Little Princess is an expanded version of Frances Hodgson Burnett's 1888 short story entitled Sara Crewe: or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's, which was first serialized in St. Nicholas Magazine from 1887 to 1888. According to Burnett, after she composed the 1902 play based on the story, her publisher asked that she expand the story into the novel with "the things and people that had been left out before."