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.
I am pleased to report that Kelly O'Connor McNees' debut novel, The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, has been included on the American Library Association's Amelia Bloomer Project 2011 list of "well-written and well-illustrated books with significant feminist content." Her novel was listed in the category intended for young adults. You can read more …
Continue reading "“The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott” given honor by the ALA"
I came across a new book with an interesting angle that includes several authors along with Louisa May Alcott. Iit's called American Writers at Home by J. D. McClatchy with photographcs by Erica Lennard. The Newstraitstime website summarized the book this way: A RATHER novel compilation of literary cribs, an exploration into how the physical …
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Harriet Reisen sent me a section from her book, Louisa May Alcott The Woman Behind Little Women that nicely summarizes Drs. Hirschhorn and Greaves' article (see post): Chapter 17: “The Cream of Things,” (page 271 in hardback) “Louisa continued to believe Dr. Kane’s 1870 diagnosis, that mercury poisoning from calomel lay at the root of …
Continue reading "Follow-up to “What was ailing Louisa May Alcott?”"
Our friend Jillian has written another beautiful post about Louisa May Alcott, this time reviewing Harriet Reisen's and book and DVD, Louisa May Alcott The Woman Behind Little Women. Here's the link: http://jillianisreading.wordpress.com/2011/01/03/book-25-louisa-may-alcott-the-woman-behind-little-women-by-harriet-reisen/#comment-1781
To continue with my account of the field trip of a lifetime, there were many more treasures that I found at the Concord Free Public Library: A May Alcott Nieriker Exhibition Regular readers of this blog know of my esteem for May Alcott Nieriker. I discovered (first to my dismay and then to my delight) …
As I continue to slowly go through Susan Cheever's Louisa May Alcott A Personal Biography and read yet more background, I came upon a story of Louisa's that related to her incident at the Mill Dam where she nearly threw herself into the water in despair, to end her life. That story, "Love and Self-Love" …
Continue reading "“Love and Self-Love,” another early success story for Louisa May Alcott"
I'm currently reading chapter 6 in Susan Cheever's book, Louisa May Alcott A Personal Biography which focuses on the years of 1863-65 when Louisa would serve as a nurse in the Civil War, and taste her first literary successes. Louisa had been writing her "blood and thunder" tales to earn money for "the pathetic family" …
Our friend Jillian wrote an incredible post on her blog, A Room of One's Own about Fruitlands and its cast of characters and she called it "Fruity Fruitlands - an Alcott Family Utopia". I can't add any words to this, it's that good. Check it out.
Christmas in my office is a lot of fun (I work for an independent Real Estate firm, Rutledge Properties, doing their marketing). We are right in downtown Wellesley, Massachusetts with a lovely storefront, all decorated with a Christmas village of gingerbread houses made by children of the brokers, plus a real antique train set that …
Susan Cheever in her biography, Louisa May Alcott A Personal Biography briefly mentioned Louisa's first novel, The Inheritance, written before she was twenty. Based upon the "gothic novel" formula of the day (poor orphan girl works on an English country estate for a fabulously wealthy family only to find out she is the true heir), …
Continue reading "Louisa May Alcott’s first novel, “The Inheritance”"
Louisa May Alcott is My Passion 