[Ads-l] Little Lord Fauntleroy

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Little Lord Fauntleroy was serialized in St. Nicholas Magazine during
1885 and 1886. In July 1886 a columnist in an Indiana newspaper
described the main character as "priggish".

Date: July 9, 1886
Newspaper: The Indianapolis Journal
Newspaper Location: Indianapolis, Indiana
Article: About People and Things
Quote Page 4, Column 6
Database: Newspapers.com
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-indianapolis-journal-priggish/204826663/

[Begin excerpt]
MRS. FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT'S, "Little Lord Fauntleroy," of whom the
St. Nicholas readers all know, is in a sense photographic, the real
boy being Herbert Hodgson, a son of Mrs. Burnett's brother. This
brother, a jeweler, lives in Norfolk. The Fauntleroy of the story is a
charming creature, but as priggish as was ever fond mother's son.
[End excerpt]

Below is a sampling of additional uses of Little Lord Fauntleroy.
In 1889 a newspaper in Minnesota reviewed a local eatery used Little
Lord Fauntleroy in a simile when referring to a "swell", i.e., a
dandy.

Date: September 15, 1889
Newspaper: The Sunday Tribune
Newspaper Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Article: New York Chat
Quote Page 16, Column 4
Database: Newspapers.com
https://www.newspapers.com/article/star-tribune-fauntleroy/204824491/

[Begin excerpt]
To eat at Beefsteak John's is a "fad."
...
The swell, seated like a Little Lord Fauntleroy, on a cracker box,
helps himself with his fingers.
[End excerpt]

In 1904 a newspaper in Vermont used Little Lord Fauntleroy in a simile
when describing a delicate stomach.

Date: December 17, 1904
Newspaper: Vermont Journal
Newspaper Location: Windsor, Vermont
Article: Vermont Journal
Quote Page 4, Column 1
Database: Newspapers.com
https://www.newspapers.com/article/vermont-journal-fauntleroy/204825429/

[Begin excerpt]
MR. DOOLEY'S remark that a man is foolish who tries to be too kind to
his stomach ought to set to thinking hard those who have set out to
feed their digestive organs steadily on hashed food of a dozen
different sorts. As the Record says: "The man who treats his stomach
'like a little Lord Fauntleroy,' as the Chicago philosopher says, gets
these days to an extreme as absurd as the one who overloaded it early
and often with all sorts of indigestibles."
[End excerpt]

In 1910 a newspaper in Minnesota used Little Lord Fauntleroy when
describing weakness.

Date: June 26, 1910
Newspaper: The Minneapolis Journal
Newspaper Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Article: Lind's Boom Is Started in New Ulm
Quote Page 2, Column 6
Database: Newspapers.com
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-minneapolis-journal-fauntleroy/204826083/

[Begin excerpt]
"The republican party of the state of Minnesota is permeated with this
same idea, but the political leaders of the party, seeking only for
success, were fearful of making it prominent in their platform, and in
place of this they have substituted a weak declaration which is like a
little Lord Fauntleroy as compared with a trained, vigorous athlete.
It is of a pink tea variety, meaningless when closely analyzed, and
entirely ineffective in getting hold of the hearts of the people at
large.
[End excerpt]

In 2020 a blog on the JSTOR website discussed the negative perception
of Little Lord Fauntleroy in the 1930s.

Website: JSTOR Daily
Date: March 26, 2020
Article: The Masculinization of Little Lord Fauntleroy
Author: Kristin Hunt
https://daily.jstor.org/the-masculinization-of-little-lord-fauntleroy/

[Begin excerpt]
In a 1937 column, Marian Mays Martin warned that Little Lord
Fauntleroy was "no model for any self-respecting small boy." She
elaborated that "boys of today are not the Little Lord Fauntleroy
type. They may be sweet, but not sugary. They are reasonably good, but
not priggish, and they are capable and enterprising enough to take on
all manner of grown-up occupations."
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Fri, Aug 28, 2026 at 9:18 AM Rich Lowenthal
<000018596069864c-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
>
> 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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>
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