The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1892-04-17
FRANCES 4. BURNETT
A Chat With the Novelist in
Her Washington Home
ABOUT HERSELF AND HER WORK
Her Ideas Of the Realistic School of Fiction
and Her Object in Writ1ng-How Her
First Manuscript Looked in Print

WASHINGTON, April u, 1S92.-TSpecisl
correspondence of TIE SUNDAY HERALD l..
Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett, the novel
ist, is spending the spring very quietly in
Washington. She returned from England
about the first of March, and she will re-
main here until the summer, when she will
leave the capital for the sea shore or the
mountains. She is in excellent health. and
the probability is that she will soon re-
sumo her literary lsbors. As it is she is
turning out some manuscript every day,
and the work she is engaged upon now is
story of boys club in London which she
10 writing, strangely enough, for her son
Vivian, and which win be published by
him in the little printing Office which he is
running in the basement of her Massachu
sets avenue mansion. Vivian Burnett is
the original Little Lord Fauntleroy."
Mrs. Burnett tells me the public and the
newspapers have made a mistake in sup
posing that she took the character from
her elder son Lionel, the boy who died,
and that the real original was Vivian. She
told me that Lionel furnished here and
there paragraph in the work, but that it
was Vivian's personality that led her to
imagine how interesting such boy would
be In fiction, and that Little Lord Faunt-
leroy'' was in fact vivid reproduction of
him and his sayings. 1t will be interest
ing for the people to know that the genuine
Little Lord Eauntleroy'' is still alive and
that he is very much alive too. He is now
e boy of about fifteen or sixteen years of
age. and he is as bright and manly young
fellow as you will find at the capital. He
Is noted for his tact and his kind hearted
ness and he has something of the literary
bent so strongly shown in his mother. He
is going to school here, but he publishes at
the same time little newspaper called The
Moon, which gives all the social news about
the young people of Washington society,
and which on It's editorial page states that
it is published in the interest Of the dane
ing class and its pupils. This paper is
about the size Of page of foolscap and it
costs five cents per copy. 1t is packed full
of good news about the young people for
whom it is published and is not bad little
newspaper.
Mrs. Burnett tells me that she thinks the
book she is writing will be
VERY INTERESTING ONE
and that she hopes it will have wide cir
eulation He will have his type set up
under his own supervision and the proba-
bitity is that it will be taken up by the
hook trade and Will be sold everywhere
throughout the United States. Mrs Bur
nett gets the basis O. her story from a club
of poor boys in London. She originated
this club herself during her stay there, in
honor of her son Lionel, who died, and she
furnished il with a reading room and
library. The club is one composed of poor
boys and the book will probably be full of
stories CT boy life in London. Mrs. Bur
nett is very fond of writing for children.
During my call upon her the other day l
asked her as TO what she considered her
mission in writing, and she told me that
she felt that she was doing the most good
when she was writing good books for
children. She does not believe in the real
istic school Of fiction, and says, that the
realism Of to-day consists of painting in all
it's horrors the vices of mankind. She be-