[Ads-l] Little Lord Fauntleroy

[Rich Lowenthal]

Burnett's original work certainly did not mock its protagonist--he was 
based on her son, and contemporaries took the character, in both the 
book and hit play, as a charming figure. I think he has undergone the 
same kind of transformation over the years as Dickens's Little Nell and 
other such overly sentimental Victorian characters.

A 1954 letter to the London Times read,

"In your issue of February 12 your Critic says: 'It is commonly believed 
that Little Lord Fauntleroy must have come to a bad end.' That may be 
because there are elderly men alive to-day, the sons of foolish mothers 
who made them wear curls and 'Fauntleroy' suits and who hate his memory. 
But as a contemporary of his and one who, as a child, loved him, I must 
protest. In a later book, mostly of autobiographical sketches, Mrs. 
Hodgson Burnett said that this character had been taken from her younger 
and only surviving son and that many of 'Fauntleroy's' sayings were in 
fact his."

Vivian Burnett, the basis for the Little Lord, died in 1937 of a heart 
attack after helping to rescue four people from an overturned boat in 
Manhasset Bay. He was 61. His obituary noted that "so far from being 
effeminate, he was rugged and delighted in manly exercises. He was an 
athlete, writer, editor, and member of many clubs. "


------ Original Message ------
>From "Martin Schneider" 
<000024dc089a88e9-dmarc-request at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
To ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Date 8/28/2026 4:55:57 AM
Subject Little Lord Fauntleroy

>I participate in a well-known trivia competition in which a recent question
>incorporated a reference to "Little Lord Fauntleroy"... in context it was
>clear that the reference was mildly pejorative. The term derives from an
>1886 novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
>
>My interest here lies in the idea that the term is never today used in a
>non-pejorative sense.
>
>Presumably the original Burnett work was not putting down its little
>protagonist.... when did this come about? Instantaneously or did it require
>generations of moderns beaten down by World War I and Watergate and ...
>whatever into being unable to see Little Lord Fauntleroy as he "really" is
>and always treating him as a figure of ridicule.
>
>I remember a joke from a stand-up comedian .... "was 'whoop-de-do' EVER
>used in a non-ironic sense?" that is, as a genuinely heartfelt celebration?
>"Goodness lads, we won the darby! Whoop-de-do, I say, whoop-de-do!" It is
>hard for us to imagine.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
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