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.
After my reading of "An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving," I decided to dig deeper into Aunt Jo’s Scrap-Bag and the stories my mother cherished as a young girl. What I thought would be just light-hearted reading has become a poignant and very enjoyable journey into the past where I am coming to know my mother as a …
Continue reading "A peak into my mother’s childhood through Aunt Jo’s Scrap-Bag"
You know how they say that behind every great man is a great woman? How about behind every great woman? In studying the life of Abba Alcott through the reading of Marmee, the Mother of Little Womenby Sandford Meddick Salyer, there indeed was a great woman behind Louisa May Alcott. She was a mother whose …
Continue reading "Abba Alcott’s contribution – behind every great woman stands a mother"
As mentioned in yesterday's post, Alcott scholar Roberta Trites wrote a book published by the University of Iowa Press in 2007 called Twain, Alcott, and the Birth of the Adolescent Reform Novel. I have one more short interview with Trites, conducted by WGLT host Charlie Schlenker where she talks about the beginnings of what she …
(Disclaimer: Admittedly I've only just started pouring over Louisa's works, and I haven't yet ventured into her "blood and thunder" tales, so my comments here are limited to the later stage of her writing which proved to be the most successful). Louisa's genius I've often said that Louisa May Alcott's genius was twofold. She crafted …
Continue reading "Controversy wrapped in sentiment: Louisa May Alcott’s genius"
Better late than never, I finally finished An Old-Fashioned Girl! And I have lots to say about it through several posts in the next few days. I have already written a few posts about this book which you can find here. I have to admit that the book lost me somewhere in the middle, before …
Continue reading "A continuing discussion on An Old-Fashioned Girl"
I found a lovely poem that Louisa May Alcott wrote that perfectly reflects the successful formula she used in writing for children. She may have disdainfully considered it "moral pap" and only wrote it to make money, but when I read something like this, a very reassuring voice comes through the simple tale and time-tested …
Louisa May Alcott is My Passion 