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 acknowledge that Work: A Story of Experience is an important feminist work (see previous post). It was groundbreaking in that respect and makes it a relevant book for today in understanding the condition of single working women in the nineteen century. Work would be an especially valuable read for women of the Millennial generation who …
Continue reading "Wrapping up Work A Story of Experience: The Spiritual Subplot"
“…Work is an expression of Alcott’s feminist principles and a major effort toward synthesizing in popular, readable form the broad set of beliefs encompassing family, education, suffrage, labor and the moral reform of social life that defined feminist ideology in the nineteenth century.” (pg. 191 from Critical Essays on Louisa May Alcott edited by Madeleine …
Continue reading "A feminist manifesto: wrapping up Work A Story of Experience (part two)"
Several months ago I started reading Work: A Story of Experience, one of Louisa’s few adult novels. The story, like Little Women, is a thinly disguised, romanticized yet gritty autobiography coupled with wishes Louisa might have had regarding the course of her life. First, my impressions In this first of three planned posts on this …
Continue reading "A tale of two books: wrapping up Work A Story of Experience (part one)"
Chapter 9 of Work, A Story of Experience brings us face to face with another character based upon a real life person. The character is Rev. Thomas Power and the actual person is the Rev. Theodore Parker. The power of life's example In Work, Christie, very taken with Cynthy Wilkins’ optimistic view of life, fulfills …
Louisa May Alcott is My Passion 