In a shabby New York side street in the mid-1880s, young American Cedric Errol lives with his mother in genteel poverty after his father, Captain Errol dies. They receive a visit from Havisham, an English lawyer with a message from young Cedric's grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt. With the deaths of his father's elder brothers, Cedric is now Lord Fauntleroy and heir to the Earldom and a vast estate.