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| 9/30/1868 |
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Louisa May Alcott: Bomb to Best-Seller
The critics had panned Louisa May Alcott's first novel, Moods, calling it melodramatic and unbelievable. At the urging of her father's publisher, she reluctantly turned to juvenile literature -- an autobiographical novel which, she sarcastically assured her publisher, would be made from characters "as ordinary as possible." Little Women was done in twelve weeks, and an immediate best-seller. |
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| 9/30/1868 |
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Little Women, Coleridge, Utopia
On this day in 1868 Louisa May Alcott's Little Women was published. It was an immediate best seller, bringing the thirty-five-year-old Alcott a popularity she did not expect: "I plod away, though I don't really enjoy this sort of thing. Never liked girls or knew many, except my sisters, but our queer plays and experiences may prove interesting, though I doubt it." |
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An Old-Fashioned Girl
fiction |
Behind a Mask: The Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott
by Louisa May Alcott, Madeleine Stern (Editor)
anthology, fiction |
Little Women
fiction |
Louisa May Alcott: Life, Letters, and Journals
by Louisa May Alcott, Ednah D. Cheney (Editor)
journals |
The Journals of Louisa May Alcott
by Louisa May Alcott, Daniel Shealy (Editor), Joel Myerson (Editor), Madeleine B. Stern (Editor)
journals |
Under the Lilacs
fiction |
Work: A Story of Experience
fiction |
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FIND BOOKS BY LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
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AlcottWeb
Extensive website about Alcott, featuring links to online electronic texts, including major works, stories for The Atlantic Monthly, and selected essays and poems. Several biographies, and images of Alcott, her family, Orchard House, and illustrations from her works are also offered. An excellent resource. |  | Domestic Goddesses
Find a biography, bibliography of critical works, and literary criticism and analysis of Little Women, "Transcendental Wild Oats," "Marion Earle, or Only an Actress," "La Jeune or Actress and Woman," "Pauline's Passion and Punishement," and "Behind a Mask," and the Civil War story "Hospital Sketches." Includes a complete Masters thesis, Transcendental Actress: Louisa May Alcott And The Roles of a Lifetime:
"Alcott herself was an example of everything that made American women in the Victorian era troublesome. Like Dickens, she was concerned with social issues and tried to use some of her fiction to shape the conscience of her readers. She was opinionated, speaking out for women's rights. She was independent, both socially and, eventually, financially; she also fought to break out of the labels placed upon her by others. During her struggles for self-definition, Alcott, externalizing many elements of her personality, created a novel that has helped define girlhood and young womanhood in American for over 100 years. That novel complicates the roles that women in general are expected to play when it shows us that the roles the March girls play are variable, complex, and possibly as satisfying as they can be limiting." | | I Hear America Singing
Read an essay which explores the influence of Alcott's family on her development as a writer. A small selection of quotes is also provided.
"One of four daughters of the prominent Transcendentalist and pioneering educational innovator, Bronson Alcott, and his wife, Abigail May, who distinguished herself in the Abolitionist, Suffrage, and other reform causes of the period, Louisa May was born in Pennsylvania, but grew up in Boston and later in Concord, where she associated directly with her parents' circle which included the Emersons, Thoreaus, Hawthornes, and Ripleys." | | Online Books Page
Find electronic texts including the US and UK versions of Little Women, Under the Lilacs, Work: A Story of Experience, Hospital Sketches, Jack and Jill, Marjorie's Three Gifts, and other works. | | Teacher Resource File
A comprehensive collection of links to biographies, bibliographies, electronic texts, and lesson plans. A useful starting point for students and teachers. | |
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Natasha D'Schommer
, and the book art featured is by Jim Rosenau.
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