Who Was Little Lord Fauntleroy?

At one time this was a well known name, even by people who had never read the children's story by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Published in 1886, it is the rags-to-riches story of an American boy (about 8 when the story starts) living very modestly in America with his widowed mother, who turns out to be the heir to an English Earldom. Young Cedric then goes to England to live with his bad-tempered grandfather, and soon wins all hearts with his sweet temper and fearless ways. He even brings about a reconciliation between his grandfather and his mother (whose marriage to Cedric's father had caused a breach in the family.) The story itself is less sentimental than it sounds, but a generation of late Victorian boys hated the very name of Fauntleroy, because the book sparked off a vogue among middle-class mothers for dressing their own small sons like Cedric – in velvet knickerbockers and ringlets.

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