LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY.

LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY by FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT.

BACK COVER BLURB: Growing up in a poor New York neighbourhood, Cedric Errol appears to be a normal American boy. However, as he discovers when he meets his grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt, he is actually Lord Fauntleroy, and is expected to become an English gentleman. Whisked away from his mother and his friends, Cedric must find a way to convince his grandfather to send him home and show him that there is more to nobility than titles and wealth

FIRST SENTENCE {1. A GREAT SURPRISE}: Cedric himself knew nothing whatever about it.

MEMORABLE MOMENT {PAGE 86}: He had employed most of his noble leisure  in quarrelling violently with them, in turning them out of his house and applying abusive epithets to them - and they all hated them cordially.

SOURCE: Part of the Junior Classics range. I received this from Alma Books.

READ FOR: Not applicable.

MY THOUGHTS: A beautiful novel, a moral tale wrapped in innocence. If I had to sum Little Lord Fauntleroy up in one word it would be... delightful, simply delightful.

Typically predictable of the rag to riches genre, of every novel in which good prevails, in which a cold-heart is thawed by an individual so sweet, so pure, so beautiful, as to be angelic.

Yes, Cedric, the little Lord Faunteroy of the title, is so flawless as to be sickeningly nauseating. His grandfather, a bit of a pantomime villain (or was it just me who mentally booed every time he was mentioned?), the quintessential Victorian gentleman landowner, embittered and in need of redemption.

The kind of story that is ideally read whilst wrapped in a blanket sat before a roaring fire and sipping hot chocolate. It's right up there if you are looking for a book that is pure, arguably twee, Victoriana.