U. acquires missing chapter of 19th century manuscript

In the lecture, titled “What Happened to Frances Hodgson Burnett’s Harry Potter? The Rise and Fall of a 19th Century Children’s Classic,” Knoepflmacher joked that there were actually few plot similarities between “Harry Potter” and Burnett’s work, except that the main characters in each are fatherless boys and are “creations of women authors.”

Knoepflmacher’s lecture marked the launch of an exhibition in the library featuring the complete “Little Lord Fauntleroy” manuscript, which has been gathered in Firestone Library after its pages were separated for almost a century. The exhibition has been in planning since the final chapter was acquired two years ago.

Published in 1886, “Little Lord Fauntleroy” was authored by Frances Hodgson Burnett, an English-American writer who is most famous for “A Little Princess” and “The Secret Garden.” The novel revolves around Cedric Errol, a young, poor, fatherless boy who ultimately inherits a great deal of wealth from his grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt.

The similarities between “Little Lord Fauntleroy” and the “Harry Potter” works, separated by more than a century, become more apparent when considering the attention they received at the height of their popularity.

During its time, “Little Lord Fauntleroy” was so popular that it “outsold adult novels such as Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace,’ ” Knoepflmacher explained. But now the story is practically unknown.

When Knoepflmacher ordered a copy of “Little Lord Fauntleroy” from Amazon.com, it came as part of a series called “forgotten books,” he said — an event that led him to consider “what had transformed a one-time bestseller into a forgotten book.”

Knoepflmacher said that Fauntleroy was gradually displaced by the female heroines in Burnett’s later works.

The exhibition at Firestone also features a collection of some of Burnett’s correspondence with her publisher and family.

“Within the library’s manuscript holdings on Frances Hodgson Burnett, her correspondence (letters back and forth) with family and publishers is what has the most research value and gets the most use by research,” Don Skemer, curator of manuscripts, said in an e-mail.

“As for having the ‘Little Lord Fauntleroy’ manuscript whole again after a century — well, it’s certainly a good thing, though perhaps more for exhibition and display than as grounds for new research,” he explained.

“Still, it is a major work by an important British-American author, so most welcome.”