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.
You never know what you will find out from a librarian. Or where research will lead you. That's what makes it so addictive. The Alcotts and Homeopathy My research on Elizabeth Alcott has recently led me into the world of alternative medicine. The Alcotts were followers of Homeopathy, a popular alternative to traditional medicine in …
Continue reading "A rare look at Louisa May Alcott’s life as an invalid and a patient"
I am listening for a second time to Harriet Reisen's fine biography, Louisa May Alcott The Woman Behind Little Women. In discussing Louisa's childhood Reisen makes many references to a story Louisa wrote for her first children's series, Morning-Glories and Other Stories. Having little experience with writing children's stories, Louisa opted to learn by doing, …
Continue reading "“Poppy’s Pranks” reveals the childhood of Louisa May Alcott"
Little did Louisa May Alcott know that when she wrote Little Women, her classic book based upon her own family life and their “queer” adventures, she was writing the story that was on the heart of all Americans. Universal family It was time when American yearned for its own literature, its own family. The March …
Little Women has been called autobiographical because Louisa May Alcott used so many episodes from her own childhood and that of her family to create the story. But where does fact end and fiction begin? Or does it even work like that? Stern says, “Fact was embedded in fiction, and a domestic novel begun in …
Louisa May Alcott was never bashful about borrowing from previous stories to flesh out Little Women. Several short stories set the stage for the classic: “The Sisters’ Trial” (four sisters, Leonore, Agnes, Ella and Amy facing going out to work to deal with the family’s poverty), “A Modern Cinderella” (depicting Anna and John as Nan …
I have always maintained that Madeleine B. Stern’s Louisa May Alcott: A Biography is the standard bearer. Tracing the life of Louisa the writer, Stern gives penetrating insight not only into Louisa’s life, but her very essence as a writer. As a writer myself, I have found much wisdom in these pages and have marveled …
Louisa May Alcott is My Passion 