Little Lord Fauntleroy

Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett (1849 - 1924) was a British-American novelist and playwright. She is best known for the three children's novels Little Lord Fauntleroy (published in 1885-1886), A Little Princess (1905) and The Secret Garden (1911). She was born in Cheetham, Manchester, England. After her father died in 1852, the family fell on straitened circumstances and in 1865 emigrated to the United States, settling in Jefferson City, Tennessee. There Frances began writing to help earn money for the family, publishing stories in magazines from the age of 19. In 1870, her mother died and in 1872 Frances married Swan Burnett, who became a medical doctor. The Burnetts lived for two years in Paris, where their two sons were born, before returning to the United States to live in Washington, D.C. Burnett then began to write novels, the first of which (That Lass o' Lowrie's), was published to good reviews. Little Lord Fauntleroy was published in 1886 and made her a popular writer of children's fiction, although her romantic adult novels written in the 1890s were also popular. She wrote and helped to produce stage versions of Little Lord Fauntleroy and A Little Princess. Burnett enjoyed socializing and lived a lavish lifestyle. Beginning in the 1880s, she began to travel to England frequently and in the 1890s bought a home there, where she wrote The Secret Garden. Her oldest son, Lionel, died of tuberculosis in 1890, which caused a relapse of the depression she had struggled with for much of her life.[1] She divorced Swan Burnett in 1898, married Stephen Townsend in 1900, and divorced him in 1902. A few years later she settled in Nassau County, Long Island, where she died in 1924 and is buried in Roslyn Cemetery. In 1936 a memorial sculpture by Bessie Potter Vonnoh was erected in her honour in Central Park's Conservatory Garden. The statue depicts her two famous Secret Garden characters, Mary and Dickon.

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Originally published as a serial in the children's monthly magazine ST NICHOLAS, LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY was Frances Hodgson Burnett's first children's novel and on its publication in book form in October 1866 it became at once an astonishing success.

Contains extra material for young readers including a glossary and a test yourself section

Little Lord Fauntleroy is the engaging, amusing, and moving story of a boy living on the edge of poverty in New York, who suddenly learns that he is the heir to an English lord with vast lands and wealth. Travelling to his grandfather's castle, Cedric shows his trusting and democratic nature in his dealings with lawyers and clergymen, servants and farmers, but it is his relationship with his proud and unfeeling grandfather which lies at the heart of the novel, and developments there take an unexpected turn when the appearance of an unforeseen rival claimant to the title brings the book to a dramatic climax. First published in 1886, the story soon became a huge success throughout Europe and America, and achieved unjust notoriety when its hero's costume of black velvet with lace collar created a fashion for Little Lord Fauntleroy suits which were foisted upon reluctant children. Despite this reaction, however, the warmth and humour of Frances Hodgson Burnett's story have ensured its survival as a children's classic and an enduring phenomenon of popular culture. The text is that of the first English edition with significant variations from the first serialization of the story and the first American edition recorded in the notes.