I LOVE THIS STORY! First off I loved the fact that someone had an interest in finding out the truth not only about a beloved writter but of Family. Family really is important. For a non fiction book the writting style really did keep me entertained which I gotta admit I wasn't expecting. This book also made me realize how people really do influence our lives wheather we know it or not! If you love Little Women you will love this book!

Ah, the Alcotts! I first read Little Women when I was about seven and then read my way through all of Alcott's children's books (several times each). While my collection stayed on my bookshelf and moved with me from place to place, I didn't re-read until I read Geraldine Brooks's fabulous historical fiction novel, March. Happily, there have been a lot of Alcott related books published recently. This one is really well researched, interesting and even infuriating at times as Bronson Alcott plowed More...

LaPlante, Eve. Marmee & Luisa: The Untold Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Mother. Unabridged. 12 CDs. 14.5 Hours. Tantor. 2013. ISBN: 978-1-4526-1046-7. $39.99. F

Louisa May Alcott is one of the most iconic female writers of all time. A trailblazer and mainstay in American Literature, Louisa has always been framed by historians as her father’s daughter, molded in his image. LaPlante reveals in her diligent investigation that while Bronson Alcott certainly influenced Louisa, he absent, dist More...

Louisa May Alcott’s mother Abigail (or Marmee) gets her due by being front and center in this informative, fascinating, and sometimes heartbreaking book. Although much more has been written about Louisa’s idealistic but self-centered father Bronson Alcott, author Eve LaPlante makes a convincing case that it was her mother Louisa was closest to and most like.

Abigail was a lively, convention breaking young woman, and was at least as bent on improving the world as her husband--for instance she emb More...

Like perhaps millions of other girls before me, I loved reading Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. She identified with Jo March and thrilled to her struggle to transcend the restrictive notions about women in 19th century America — or twentieth century America, for that matter. What I didn’t know was how much Louisa May Alcott’s own family was the model for her classic bestseller — sometimes in an idealized version, as with the character of Jo and her sisters’ father. But the portrayal of the gir More...

Almost more than a biography, Eve LaPlante's Marmee and Louisa reads like a romance novel: a love affair between a mother and a daughter; a love affair between Eve LaPlante and her great-aunt, Abigail May Alcott. It occurs to me that LaPlante fell in love with her great-aunt the day she discovered Abigail's forgotten letters, in the attic of her home. The act of discovery itself reads like an early Louisa May romance.

I, too, fell in love with the real Marmee, if truth be told. Within these pages More...

This biography of "Little Women" author Louisa May Alcott and her mother, Abigail May Alcott, the inspiration for Marmee is written by a descendant of the Alcotts who found a trove of letters and journals in a family attic. It's an absolutely fascinating account of Abigail's life and travails as the wife of the brilliant, but impratical husband Bronson Alcott. Abigail was born into the Boston Brahmins, but suffered a huge reversal of fortunes when she aligned her wagon to Bronson Alcott. Bronson More...

I mowed through this book in six days. It's brilliant. The author weaves all the major historical events of the time with the lives of the women, Abigail and Louisa May Alcott, seamlessly, comparing their struggles against that of women and slaves in the country throughout this turbulent time in American history.

I grew up reading "Little Women" and have considered it one of my most influential and important books, but I never bothered to research the woman who wrote it. Louisa and her mother we More...

Through the description of this close mother-daughter bond, we finally have a realistic picture of the Alcott family dynamics. Eve LaPlante, using original letters and journal fragments she inherited from her May forbears, discusses what should have been obvious: Abigail May Alcott was the main influence on Louisa Mae Alcott, not her father, Bronson.

This book challenges conventional wisdom on the Alcott family. The Pulitzer Prize winning Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Fa More...

"Marmee & Louisa" was a fascinating look at America before, during and after the Civil War. It is the story of Louisa May Alcott and her amazing mother. They counted many well-known historical figures among their friends and family. Abigail, (Marmee), was John Hancock's niece and related to Abigail Adams, wife of President John Adams. Their friends included Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Susan B. Anthony, Emerson and Thoreau. Abigail Alcott was very well-connected in Boston society with More...

I was surprised when a young woman asked me who Louisa May Alcott was. I told her that if you were a girl who was raised anytime up into the 1970's, you probably grew up reading her books. It kind of saddened me to think that this is probably not true today, because when I was growing up, I read everything Alcott wrote, some of them several times.

With Marmee and Louisa, I learned about the life of a woman for whom I have always had a great deal of admiration. In some ways, it was like reading a More...

An absolutely fascinating look at the extremely close relationship between Louisa May Alcott, one of America's favorite authors, and her loving mother.

As a 21st century woman with every opportunity available to me, it is still hard to conceive of the strictures women lived under throughout much of history. Smart, intelligent, well-read women were still expected to be nothing more than glorified house drudges and breeding mares. Alcott's mother, Abigail May, wanted so much more from life than th More...

Wow...this was one of the best books I have read in a long time. I have been a fan of all of LMA's books since I was a young girl reading them. I had always heard the same tripe that we have all been fed...that Bronson Alcott and the men in Louisa's life were the great influence on Louisa and led her to be the woman and writer that she became. Wrong. Let me first say that I am a strong believer in a father's influence in a daughter's life, and I am not a man hater. That being said, though, by th More...

I thought I knew the Alcotts from reading "Little Women." I thought wrong. The story of the Alcott's is different from that of the Marches. Included in it is the story of the history of the Abolitionist movement and the Women's Suffrage movement. Abigail Alcott, Louisa May Alcott, Samuel Joseph May and others are the Americans you can look back on in history and be proud of.

This was not just the story of social movements, though, it is also the story of a dysfunctional family. I'd always assume More...

Marmee and Louisa - Eve LaPlante

A biographical view of the lives of a mother and daughter, Abigail May Alcott and Louisa May Alcott, and the influence on LMA's writing. Additionally there is considerable material on domestic life and social perspectives in the mid-nineteenth century northern U.S. (This of interest now to me in particular, and i would recommend to others with a similar interest. I read this right after America Aflame by David Goldfield, a good combination.) Considerable attention More...

LaPlante, Eve
Biography

When my grandmother gave me the Little Women trilogy boxed set when I was a little girl, she presented me with a gift beyond measure, for within their pages I found a world that captivated me and a heroine that inspired me to write, to dream, to live. Jo March was my girlhood idol and I wanted more than anything to have a family and life like hers. Needless to say, I read the book over and over and searched out the other treasures written by the woman who would soon become More...

Back in 2009, "Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women" was written by Harriet Reisen. I read it and thought it was good but it doesn't come close to "Marmee & Louisa." In the first book, you barely knew that Abigail, Louisa's mother, even existed. The emphasis was on Bronson, Louisa's father and that he was the one behind her brilliance.
As a child, I read "Little Women" over and over again. I couldn't get enough of it and felt as if I knew the family inside-and-out. "Marmee & L More...

A great read for anyone who loved Little Women or is interested in the abolitionist and women's suffrage movements. It was not Bronson Alcott, Louisa's feckless father, but her mother, Abigail May Alcott, who encouraged her writing. Bronson was on the road a lot, and the family was often on the verge of homelessness and hunger in his absence. Abigail, the Marmee of the title, had proposed to him rather than marry her first cousin. Big mistake. Apparently, being a Boston brahman was only a charme More...

I was lucky enough to get an Advanced Readers' Edition of this book, and I couldn't wait to read it! It was a great read.

The basic premise of the book is that although most people think that Louisa May Alcott's father, Bronson Alcott, was the main influence in her life and writing, that person was in fact her mother, Abigail May Alcott. Abigail was a woman ahead of her time, who dreamed of being able to do what she wanted with her life, at a time when marriage was pretty much the only choice for More...

This is wonderful! I first read Louisa May Alcott's Little Women when I was 9, and it's the book that sparked my love of reading; in fact, I remember going back and re-reading my favorite passages over and over again long after I had finished the book. When I heard about this on NPR Books, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. I enjoy biographies b/c they always provide great historical insight, and this bio of Louisa May Alcott does so in surprising ways. I learned a lot about the development More...

Perhaps it was with idealistic eyes that I read the blurb of this Good Reads Giveaway entry. Perhaps I became carried away envisioning the mingled scenes created between the reading of "Little Women" as a young person and then viewing the film as I raised children of my own. It is rare that I need to admit that a book has bested my interest, but that one has. Ms. LaPlante has done an exceptional work that showcases her research in a welcoming style, however the welcome did not encourage me enoug More...

I found this to be a great read if you loved Little Women or any of Loiuisa Mae Alcott's book;or are interested in the reformist movement, abolitionism and women's suffrage movements. Eva LaPlante has written a comprehensive biography of a mother and daughter, and the world they lived in; the history they experienced, lived through and the influence of their historical family in the founding and establishing of our country.

I liked the fact that Eva LaPlante pulled in the historical significant More...

I have developed a fascination with all things Louisa May Alcott late in life unlike all the little girls who discovered her when they read Little Women. Although, this book of nonfiction can be rather dry at times, especially in the beginning, which doesn't bode well for the book, I encourage readers to stick with it. As in life, when Bronson Alcott (Louisa May Alcott's father) enters the book, all becomes riveting with the chaos only he can create.
The book is authored by the great, great grand More...

Little Women was released almost 150 years ago. It still stands up today as a family saga. Louisa May Alcott was very successful which was unusual for that time. Her father, Bronson Alcott was though by many biographers to be the source of her success. He was a vain man who spent little time at home, instead, traveling speaking out against slavery.
The book uses diaries, letters and family papers to put together the story of Louisa and her mother Abigail. The story shows it was the strong Abigail More...

I read this as I was reading Little Women, a book I loved as a child. While I knew a little about the Alcotts and have visited Concord, MA, there was so much more information about Louisa here: her relationship with her mother and sisters, her father, and the sources of her writing. I see Little Women with new eyes and have great respect for Louisa's selfless devotion to her family. There are wonderful tidbits of information for lovers of Little Women: Louisa sometimes took care of R.W. Emerson' More...

I'm glad I read it, but what a bummer. According to the author, who is a relative of the Mays, Bronson Alcott was a selfish, immature, narcissistic person, and his wife was an intelligent, before her time thinker, and a saint. The book tells how, in some ways similar to the LIW/RWL relationship, the real Marmee's misfortunes fueled her daughter's writerly ambitions and the themes of her daughter's books. If the real Mr. March was like the real Mr. Alcott, be glad he way away at the war during 'L More...

Marmee and Louisa (or Marmee and Me, as I think of it) covers a lot of ground. Author LaPlante is a descendent of Alcott, and credit is due her for her "warts and all" coverage of the family--especially ne'er-do-well dad, Bronson. The family's story moves drearily from one death to the next, from one house to the next, from one failed job to--finally--Bronson's pathetic surrender to poverty. Louisa's eventual success as an author is the only light in this tragic story, and even that cannot rescu More...

A dual biography by a distant cousin of the Alcott family. In this book, the author explores much of the hidden genius and material that Louisa May Alcott incorporated into her famous novels. The real "Marmee" is Louisa's mother Abigail May Alcott. She was intelligent, fiercely independent and was locked into marriage with a man who never supported his large family. Utilizing letters, journals and Louisa's stories the author makes a case that history has not dealt kindly with Abigail Alcott and More...

"Even a feminist study of nineteenth-century women writers suggested that Abigail exerted no intellectual influence on Louisa, who 'was taught by her father and also introduced to men of great influence, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau.' No anthology or biography portrayed Louisa as 'taught by her mother and also introduced to women of great influence, including Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Lydia Maria Child, and Margaret Fuller.' Yet that statement, I di More...

This is a well-written book that explores a new perspective on who was behind Louisa May Alcott's success. Her mother was the one who was there for her at all times, encouraging her and being a true role model. So often Bronson Alcott is given the lion's share of credit for Louisa's success, even though he didn't support the family financially and was an absentee parent most of the time. It is very clear from this book that Marmee was the heart and soul of a family that had to cover for their ph More...