Little Women, Little Men & Jo's Boys (Illustrated Edition): Including Good Wives
February 4, 1991
One of the most prolific authors of her day, Alcott (1832-1888) is popularly identified with Little Women. Compiled by the editors of her journals, letters and A Double Life: Newly Discovered Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott , this anthology displays the range of her fiction. Raised in an impoverished, fiercely intellectual New England home according to transcendentalist principles, Alcott vented a fertile imagination and satisfied a need for money by producing romances, often under a pseudonym, for a ready audience. One of these, ``The Rival Prima Donnas,'' though staid by contemporary norms, bespeaks Alcott's storyteller's passion. Alcott's later, realistic narratives, often with macabre themes, are represented in ``Hope's Debut,'' with its shadow of incest and a curiously modern note in its theatrical background. Readers view the evolution of a thoughtful, expressive woman who wrote about war, race relations and the state of being single as well as about family.
October 4, 1993
Written when Alcott was between the ages of 10 and 13, these lucid diary entries in essence provide a behind-the-scenes look at her classic novel, Little Women . Quotes from that novel, as well as Ryan's insightful annotations, reinforce the parallel between Alcott's fiction and her childhood years. Born in 1832, Alcott and her three sisters had a regimented upbringing on Fruitlands, the experimental Massachusetts farm begun by their father and a friend. After the farm failed, the family moved into the Concord home that became the model for the setting of Little Women . Here, Alcott ``at last got the little room I have wanted so long,'' in which she continued to sharpen her writing skills. According to Ryan, Alcott's father nurtured in her ``what she needed to become a writer: a love and mastery of language and a freedom and power of expression.'' On the basis of this volume--which contains a sampling of her heartfelt, strikingly sophisticated poetry--Alcott achieved these goals at an impressively young age. Polished, period paintings by Graham ( Roommates ; Lottie's Dream ) present affecting portraits of the girl who so eloquently expresses herself on these pages. Ages 10-up.
May 29, 2000
Diary entries and Ryan's "insightful annotations," said PW, ``provide a behind-the-scenes look at... Little Women." Ages 10-up.