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Cedric Errol / Lord Fauntleroy

A cheerful, golden-curled American boy who learns at about age seven that he is heir to the Earldom of Dorincourt. He grew up in modest circumstances in New York, close friends with a grocer and a bootblack, and carries an unshakeable, guileless friendliness that wins over everyone he meets, including his fierce grandfather. He calls his mother 'Dearest,' keeps her tiny portrait in a violet velvet case, and later is nearly displaced from his title when a rival claimant appears.

Mrs. Errol (Dearest)

Cedric's gentle, devoted American mother, widow of Captain Cedric Errol. Once a poor orphan working as a companion to an unkind rich old lady, she married for love against the Earl's wishes. She is kept apart from her son at Dorincourt by the Earl's bitterness, but wins the countryside's love through quiet charity, visiting the sick and poor in her brougham (a gift from Cedric) and teaching poor children to sew.

The Earl of Dorincourt

Cedric's grandfather, an extremely wealthy, proud, ill-tempered old nobleman who owns Dorincourt Castle, Wyndham Towers, and Chorlworth. He despised Captain Errol's American marriage and initially refuses to receive Mrs. Errol, offering her money instead which she declines. Cedric's innocent trust and affection gradually soften him, leading him to fund cottage repairs, forgive tenants' debts, and ultimately declare Cedric his boy regardless of the title dispute.

Captain Cedric Errol

Cedric's late father, the Earl of Dorincourt's youngest and most charming son, handsome, brave, and kind unlike his two elder brothers. He was sent to travel in America by his father and there met and married Mrs. Errol, an act that caused a permanent rift with the Earl. He died while Cedric was very young.

Mr. Havisham

The dry, keen, business-like family lawyer who has served the Earl of Dorincourt's family for nearly forty years. He travels to America to fetch Cedric, initially skeptical of American manners and Mrs. Errol's character, but is won over by the boy. He later investigates and helps disprove the rival claimant's case, arranging correspondence with Dick's brother in California.

Mr. Hobbs

A stout, opinionated grocer in New York who owns a corner store with cracker-barrels, soap, candles, and potatoes. Cedric's close childhood friend, he is deeply suspicious of earls and aristocrats, calling them 'grasping tyrants,' but grows attached to Cedric's fortune and later buys a book about earls to understand his friend's new life. He offers Dick a grocery partnership if the earldom claim fails.

Dick Tipton

A boot-black who works at a New York street corner and has been Cedric's friend for years, ever since he once retrieved a bounced ball for the boy. Cedric buys out Dick's troublesome business partner Jake as his first act of generosity as Lord Fauntleroy. Dick gives Cedric a red silk handkerchief with purple horseshoes as a parting gift, and later his brother Benjamin Tipton helps disprove the false claimant.

Mary

The Errols' Irish domestic servant, warm and plainspoken, who often fetches Cedric from Mr. Hobbs's store and cares for the family.

Bevis, Earl of Dorincourt's eldest son

One of the Earl's two elder sons, unpopular, unkind, and wasteful in his youth. He secretly married an American woman of low class six years before the main story, a marriage that later surfaces as the basis of a rival claim to the earldom through their son.

The False Claimant and Her Son

A woman of the American lower classes who appears at Dorincourt claiming she secretly married Bevis six years earlier and that her five-year-old son is the true Lord Fauntleroy. Her marriage certificate and contradictory statements about the boy's age arouse suspicion, and she is ultimately investigated and flees to London after being confronted.

Dawson

Fauntleroy's attendant/nurse-housekeeper at Dorincourt Castle who helps him settle into his grand new rooms and reassures him when he feels small and homesick in the enormous castle.

Reverend Mr. Mordaunt

The local clergyman near Dorincourt who is initially wary of meeting the Earl after Fauntleroy's arrival, expecting the Earl's temper, but finds him unexpectedly delighted by his grandson. Mordaunt benefits from Fauntleroy's intercession regarding tenant Higgins.

Lady Lorridaile

The Earl's sister, who hears stories of Fauntleroy's remarkable effect on her brother and is invited with her husband Sir Harry to Dorincourt, where she is charmed by the boy on sight.

Miss Vivian Herbert

A beautiful young lady visiting Dorincourt whom Fauntleroy openly and innocently praises as the prettiest person he has seen, second only to his mother, charming the assembled company.

Higgins

A struggling tenant farmer on the Dorincourt estate whose difficulties with the harsh agent Newick are brought to the Earl's attention by Fauntleroy, leading to the Earl's first act of unprompted generosity toward his tenants.

Newick

The Earl's estate agent, responsible for managing tenants and unpopular among them for his harsh dealings, most notably with the Higgins family.

Dorincourt Castle

The grand ancestral seat of the Earls of Dorincourt in the English countryside, a stately gray castle with turrets, battlements, ivy-covered walls, terraces, lawns, and beds of flowers, set three to four miles from its own gates within a deer park. It contains a great library with a tiger-skin rug before the fire, and numerous richly furnished rooms far larger than anything Cedric has known in America.

New York City neighborhood (Cedric's home)

A modest, unfashionable street in New York with a corner grocery store, where Cedric and his mother lived quietly in a small, cheap house before his change of fortune. The neighborhood includes Mr. Hobbs's shop and the street corner where Dick works as a bootblack.

Court Lodge

The house near Dorincourt Castle where Mrs. Errol lives, kept apart from her son by the Earl's initial refusal to receive her, though he later visits her there himself.

Earl's Court cottages

Rundown tenant cottages on the Dorincourt estate that Fauntleroy, prompted by his mother's opinion, persuades the Earl to have improved or pulled down and rebuilt for the tenants' benefit.

Dick's red silk handkerchief

A parting gift from Dick to Cedric before he sails for England: a bright red silk handkerchief decorated with purple horseshoes and horses' heads, purchased with a day's earnings from bootblacking.

Violet velvet portrait case

A small case containing a portrait of Cedric's mother, given to him to carry so he would not feel too far from her during his first nights away from home at Dorincourt Castle.

The brougham carriage

A carriage the Earl gives to Mrs. Errol, presented to her as a gift from Cedric himself so that she would accept it despite her estrangement from the Earl; she uses it to visit the poor and sick.

'The Tower of London' by Harrison Ainsworth

A novel about Bloody Mary's reign that Mr. Hobbs purchases, unable to find a book specifically 'about earls,' which he reads aloud with Dick to try to understand English nobility and its history.

Law of Inheritance and the Earldom of Dorincourt

Under English inheritance law, the Earl's eldest son and his heirs would inherit the title and vast estates including Dorincourt Castle, Wyndham Towers, and Chorlworth; since Captain Errol was the youngest of three sons, his son Cedric was never expected to inherit until his uncles died without other heirs, making him Lord Fauntleroy and heir presumptive.

Cedric's American upbringing and Mr. Hobbs's political views

Before learning of his aristocratic heritage, Cedric absorbed strong anti-aristocratic, pro-American sentiments from Mr. Hobbs, who distrusted earls and marquises as 'grasping tyrants' who would one day be overthrown by those they oppressed—views Cedric later humorously and innocently repeats to actual English nobility.