[Ads-l] Little Lord Fauntleroy

Sun Aug 30 09:05:25 UTC 2026

The negative perceptions of Fauntleroy did not derive so much from his character; if I remember correctly, he was very good, but young and naive. They came instead from his overly fancy clothing and coiffure, rendered in loving detail by the illustrator.  As a result of the book, many boys, mostly aged 3 - 8, were dressed in elaborate and impractical Fauntleroy suits. So the opportunities for ridicule were many. 

John Baker

> On Aug 30, 2026, at 6:16 PM, Martin Schneider <000024dc089a88e9-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
> 
> The 1889 Minnesota reference is close to what I was looking for....
> optimally the victim would be addressed as LLF or rudely referred to as
> such in the victim's presence, à la "Little Lord Fauntleroy here thinks
> he's too fancy for a jail cell, but we can cure him of that
> misapprehension....."
> 
>> On Sun, Aug 30, 2026 at 10:33 AM ADSGarson O'Toole <
>> 00001aa1be50b751-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
>> 
>> 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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