In 1868, a writer desperate to pull her family out of a lifetime of poverty sits down at the tiny half-moon desk in her bedroom to begin work on the book she has dreaded writing. Assigned by her publisher to write a "girl's" book, Louisa May Alcott draws upon the lives of the only girls …
See(k)ing Little Women
I hope to be receiving a copy of this book from the publisher in the next few weeks and I'm really looking forward to the read! In the meantime, here are some thoughts from the author, Beverly Clark.
Elizabeth’s form of genius; Beth’s power in Little Women (guest post by Kristi Martin)
Warning: this is a long post but I believe, well worth the time. I was so fascinated when I first heard the presentation at the Summer Conversational Series that I opted not to take notes and just enjoy it!) At the recent Summer Conversational Series, Kristi Marti (tour guide de force; she has been a …
2014 Summer Conversational Series: Margaret Fuller and the Problem of Female Genius
The Conversational series welcomed back a perennial favorite in John Matteson whose Pulitzer-prize winning book Eden’s Outcasts is a standard in Alcott scholarship. He has also written a fine book on Margaret Fuller called The Lives of Margaret Fuller; she was the focus of his presentation entitled “ ‘The Mind in the Full Glow of …
Revealing the real Abigail Alcott to the world must include Bronson
Slowly but surely I am getting through Abba’s letters in relation to my research on Lizzie Alcott. These letters cover a period from 1853 to 1858. Abba’s handwriting is difficult; it appears she often wrote in haste. Her eyesight was poor so it’s amazing she could write letters at all considering she was writing either …
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The reality of the one-room schoolhouse makes Bronson Alcott look pretty good …
Ever long to go to school as a child in a one-room schoolhouse? Sound romantic? The school of Bronson Alcott's childhood Madelon Bedell in The Alcotts: Biography of a Family described the nature of school in the days of Bronson’s childhood (early 1800s in Connecticut). If you were a child, would you want to be where: …
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Reading is a love affair. Just ask Bronson Alcott.
Bronson Alcott's favorite book of a lifetime was John Bunyon's The Pilgrim's Progress. He discovered it when he and his cousin William had begun to search through the homes of their neighbors for discarded books in order to create their own library. As a small child, tracing his letters in the sand on the floor, …
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Cynthia Barton’s Transcendental Wife on the life of Abigail Alcott a must read
Reading Eve LaPlante’s duo biography on Abigail and Louisa in Marmee & Louisa: The Untold Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Mother, I kept seeing references to a little-known book about Abigail titled Transcendental Wife by Cynthia Barton, published in 1996. Having just finished the book, I can see why LaPlante and other Alcott …
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Tracing the steps of Little Women: Madeleine B. Stern’s brilliant analysis, part four: The All-American Novel makes a cherished dream come true
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 …
Continuing to trace the steps of Little Women: Madeleine B. Stern’s brilliant analysis, part three: Can you tell what’s real and what is made up?
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 is My Passion 