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Cedric Errol is a golden-haired, warm-hearted seven-year-old living modestly in New York with his widowed mother, whom he calls 'Dearest'. One day a lawyer…
Cedric Errol is a golden-haired, warm-hearted seven-year-old living modestly in New York with his widowed mother, whom he calls 'Dearest'. One day a lawyer arrives from England with astonishing news: Cedric is now heir to his grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt, a bitter, gouty old man who had disowned Cedric's father for marrying an American. Sent to England, the boy innocently believes the best of everyone, including the earl, who slowly changes under his influence.
Context and significance
Frances Hodgson Burnett published the novel in 1886, and it was a sensation; the pictures of Cedric in a velvet suit with a lace collar led thousands of mothers to dress their sons the same way, to the boys' lasting embarrassment. Read also The Secret Garden and A Little Princess, and see her life.
About the author
Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849–1924) was born in Manchester. After her father's death the family emigrated to Tennessee, where as a teenager she began selling stories to magazines to support them. She became one of the most successful writers of her day, and Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886) started a fashion for velvet suits for boys.
She lived between America and England, and the walled garden of the house she rented in Kent inspired The Secret Garden (1911). Together with A Little Princess, it remains one of the best-loved children's books ever written.