Louisa May Alcott is My Passion
Begun in 2010, this blog offers analysis and reflection by Susan Bailey on the life, works and legacy of Louisa May Alcott and her family. Susan is an active member and supporter of the Louisa May Alcott Society, the Fruitlands Museum and Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House.
Summer is such a great time - life is finally slowing down and now I can get back to reading for fun. I've been dying to read An Old-Fashioned Girl since I found the 1926 Brown and Little copy that I so foolishly deposed of the first time. I found an audio version on Librivox.org …
Continue reading "Reading Louisa May Alcott’s next-best book, “An Old-Fashioned Girl”"
from Cozy Corner: Anna Maclean Reimagines Louisa May Alcott BY RT BOOK REVIEWS, JUNE, 15 2011 It is not easy to make a historical figure your own, but that is just what author Anna Maclean has done with the New England author Louisa May Alcott. In Maclean's series, Alcott unravels mysteries that befall her friends …
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I don't care what anyone says: I believe that Henry David Thoreau was a romantic. True, he certainly preferred his solitude over the company of others (although he and his brother at one time loved a woman named Ellen, enough to want to marry her, and it's rumored that Thoreau loved Lidian Emerson), but I …
I'm about to treat you to a wonderful interview with John Matteson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Eden's Outcasts (one of the many books on my list begging to be read). Here's a sampling to whet your appetite: What drives the continued fascination with Louisa May Alcott? Louisa combined the best aspects of both her parents. …
Continue reading "Getting to know John Matteson, author of “Eden’s Outcasts”"
There's a terrific article on the Concord Patch written by a licensed Concord tour guide, Harry Beyer. He takes you on a tour of the Alcott family plot at Sleepy Hollow cemetery. Here's a teaser from the article: Louisa May was an active abolitionist,Ā helping toĀ shelter runaway slaves on the Underground Railroad.Ā She was also an early …
Continue reading "Take a tour of the final resting place of the Alcotts"
Here's a podcast where you can listen to Susan Cheever talk about her latest book, Louisa May Alcott A Personal Biography, plus another podcast on her fascinating study on the Concord authors. American Bloomsbury. Read about and listen to the podcasts here. What did I think about her books? Read my review of Louisa May …
The official Louisa May Alcott website has started its own blog with updates on the Orchard House centennial. Here's their first installment detailing the history of the acquisition of Orchard House. This looks like a great blog and I suggest following it so that you won't miss a minute of the centennial celebration. There are …
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Here's a great essay by Klara Stephanie SzlezĆ”k where she concludes that staging is critical to the success of an historical homestead. Kudos to Orchard House for the brilliance of its staging which so beautifully captures not just the era Louisa May Alcott lived in, but her home, her family and her classic, Little Women. …
Continue reading "What makes Orchard House such a compelling historical site?"
I've created a separate twitter account (@LMAismypassion) just for this blog and you can see the posts on this site (just scroll down a bit). When I don't have time to to write a full post, I'll tweet instead. I've had to take time to prepare a talk and have had to devote all my …
I wanted to share a wonderful post I found on Dawn's "She's Too Fond of Books" blog where she describes an outing with her girl scout troop to Hapgood Wright Town Forest in Concord, where Louisa May Alcott roamed with Henry David Thoreau. As you may recall, Thoreau had a magical way of teaching nature …
Louisa May Alcott is My Passion 