An American boy in a New York back street learns he is heir to an English earldom, and is sent to a grandfather who hates his mother and expects to despise him. Burnett dressed her hero in black velvet and lace collars and set off a fashion that tormented a generation of small boys; the book also gave her a famous copyright case in the English courts. The old man's thaw is managed so carefully that the reader forgives what the plot is doing. Thirty-eight plates, from George Luks and John Sloan among others, range across a century of boys at play, in boats, and in sailor suits, matching the novel's own long look at childhood.
