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.
Now this is a new take on "Amy's Valley of Humiliation"!
Look who got featured on Pink Umbrella Books for “Alcott’s Imaginary Heroes: The Little Women Legacy”! Thank you Pink Umbrella Books for the honor and privilege of being featured in your new book.
In this blog post series, we’ll feature contributing authors from our new anthology, Alcott’s Imaginary Heroes: The Little Women Legacy. Today we’ll catch up with Susan Bailey, author, Louisa May Alcott devotee, and proud New Englander!
Contributor Susan Bailey cozies up with The Annotated Little Women in Massachusetts.
What is your favorite scene from Little Women?
My favorite scene is when Beth runs over to thank Mr. Laurence, impulsively puts her arms around his neck and kisses him, and ends up sitting in his lap. I thought that took a lot of guts to do that! I am a typical Yankee (“frozen chosen” as they call us in New England) – quite reserved, especially when it comes to showing physical affection, and I know I would have been far too self-conscious to do what Beth did. She totally forgot herself in the spirit of love and gratitude towards…
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I am happy to present this interview with Clare Niederpruem, director and writer, and Kristi Shimek, writer for Little Women (a modern retelling) starring Lea Thompson. The movie premieres on September 28, 2018. SPOILER ALERT: Some of these questions may give away parts of this movie. 1. Why did you choose to make the present …
In my opinion, a truly new reflection on Beth and the loveliest I have ever read. Thank you Sandra Burr!
By Sandra Burr
As a ten-year-old, I didn’t know what to make of Beth. She never seemed solid, unlike her sisters. Meg was worldly because she was sixteen and seemed closest to my high-school babysitters and their mysterious algebra homework. Jo was lively and talkative and always up to something, and Amy was snooty and generally repulsive. Those three sisters made sense. Beth didn’t—probably because I couldn’t grasp who she was.
I’ve learned a thing or two since I was ten, and Beth, while still elusive, presents a mystery today far more fascinating than algebra! What animates her beyond gentle timidity and maternal leanings? I decided to use Chapter 6, “Beth Finds the Palace Beautiful,” to delve into this question, hoping to find something real about Beth as she finds something real in and through the Palace Beautiful next door.
This chapter focuses on Beth’s musicality, which strikes me…
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A lovely post about Jo’s first meetup with Laurie, and reminder to us all to be good neighbors.
By Sarah Wadsworth
Looking through the clear plastic dust jacket of my childhood copy of Little Women is like peering through a window: behind the transparent “pane,” Marmee plays the piano while the girls joyously sing. Inside, a bookplate signed in my neatest thirteen-year-old hand takes me from the Marches’ parlor to my own family home. I turn the page and an inscription—”December 1976 / Merry Christmas Sarah”—calls to mind the kindness of the giver to a book-loving girl growing up, like Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, in a home defined by a father’s absence as well as a mother’s presence.
In “Being Neighborly,” kindness is key. The adjective “kind” appears four times, “kindly” three times, and “kinder” once. Kindness is made manifest in acts of thoughtful generosity, each one begetting reciprocal acts in kind. Eager to make friends, Jo arrives at the Laurence house bearing three kittens from Beth…
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A great interview by Trix Wilkins of the Much Ado about Little Women blog with Merry Gordon and Marnae Kelly of Pink Umbrella Books and their newest release, “Alcott’s Imaginary Heroes: The Little Women Legacy.”
I had to ask: Team Laurence or Team Bhaer? Editors Merry Gordon and Marnae Kelly talk Jo March’s ending, how they’d put the March sisters to work at Pink Umbrella Books (not just work of course – they’d go on holiday too), and surprises for fans in the to-be-released anthology, Alcott’s Imaginary Heroes: The Little Women Legacy.
MERRY: I’m Team Friedrich. Unpopular opinion, perhaps, but Laurie is such a puppy.
MARNAE: I’m a big Bhaer fan because of the equality of minds in that relationship and the opportunities for growth in both characters.
MERRY: I’d take an English holiday with Jo – specifically to hit up the literary landmarks, as we are kindred spirits that way.
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Back in July at the Summer Conversational Series at Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House, I had the privilege of conversing with author and Alcott scholar Anne Boyd Rioux about her new book, Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters. You can listen in as I fashioned it into a …
From the new Little Women 150 blog reflecting each week on a chapter in Alcott’s classic, here is chapter four: Little Women 150 By Sandra Harbert Petrulionis The central concerns of “Burdens” may be character development and self-education, but within its domestic lessons, this chapter also foregrounds the inequities of Civil War- era America. It …
From the new Little Women 150 blog reflecting each week on a chapter in Alcott’s classic, here is chapter three:
We are going to experiment this week by offering two different perspectives on the same chapter, both by distinguished Alcott scholars. The ways they complement each other, intersect, and diverge are fascinating. Enjoy!
Take One
By Eve LaPlante
In the gender-bending world of Little Women, the Laurence boy plays an important role. A lovely, compassionate, accommodating young man with a girl’s name, Laurie serves as a mirror to our heroine, Jo, a daring and ambitious young woman with a “gentlemanly demeanor” and a male-sounding name. It’s clear from the start that Laurie and Jo are a pair, two cross-gendered friends who seem more typical of the modern era than a century and a half in the past.
It seems fair to ask – given that Jo and her sisters were inspired by the four Alcott girls and that no Alcott boy existed (much to the dismay of Louisa’s father, Bronson) –…
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From the new Little Women 150 blog reflecting each week on a chapter in Alcott’s classic, here is chapter two:
By Katherine Paterson
Of course I wanted to be Jo. There’s nothing unusual about that. Is there a single woman’s writer of my generation that didn’t identify with her? Meg was dutiful and a bit prim, Amy was self-centered and a flibberty-gibbit. And Beth, well, of course we cried when she died, but, honestly, just between us, wasn’t she a bit tediously angelic? But Jo! She actually did things.
I remember coming into the house one day after a bout of street football with the neighborhood boys. In the living room my mother was entertaining at tea. As I listened to the cacophony of soprano voices I was struck with a sudden horror. I might have to grow up and be a woman. And all they did was talk.
In addition to her Tomboy ways, Jo was a great reader, which I certainly was, and a writer, which I didn’t think…
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Louisa May Alcott is My Passion 