The selected letters of Louisa Alcott

by Louisa May Alcott

The Selected Letters of Louisa May Alcott contains a broad cross-section of letters from the correspondence of the creator of Little Women and provides a compelling autobiography of this most autobiographical of writers. Spanning a period of forty-five years, this collection provides vivid accounts of Alcott's life and development as a writer.Episodes in Alcott's life are candidly her youth, when the prototype of Jo March was already being shaped; the 1868 publication of Little Women and the prosperity and renown the book brought its author; her never-ending struggles for her family; the final years spent caring for her niece and an invalid father. Alcott's letters also furnished a vent for the pressures she felt to write a sequel to Little Women and play matchmaker for the novel's heroine. Writing to a friend in early 1869, Alcott remarked that "Jo should have remained a literary spinster but so many enthusiastic young ladies wrote to me clamorously demanding that she should marry Laurie, or somebody, that I didnt dare to refuse & out of perversity went & made a funny match for her. I expect vials of wrath to be poured out upon my head, but rather enjoy the prospect."The correspondence sheds light on Alcott's relationship with her publishers, such friends as Emerson and Thoreau, and members of her family. Of particular note are her observations--many of them firsthand--on such major issues of the day as abolition, the Civil War, and the women's rights movement.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Classics

352 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1987

About the author

Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet best known for writing the novel Little Women (1868) and its sequels Good Wives (1869), Little Men (1871) and Jo's Boys (1886). Raised in New England by her transcendentalist parents, Abigail May Alcott and Amos Bronson Alcott, she grew up among many well-known intellectuals of the day, including Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Alcott's family suffered from financial difficulties, and while she worked to help support the family from an early age, she also sought an outlet in writing. She began to receive critical success for her writing in the 1860s. Early in her career, she sometimes used pen names such as A.M. Barnard, under which she wrote lurid short stories and sensation novels for adults that focused on passion and revenge.
Published in 1868, Little Women is set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts, and is loosely based on Alcott's childhood experiences with her three sisters, Abigail May Alcott Nieriker, Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, and Anna Bronson Alcott Pratt. The novel was well-received at the time and is still popular today among both children and adults. It has been adapted for stage plays, films, and television many times.
Alcott was an abolitionist and a feminist and remained unmarried throughout her life. She also spent her life active in reform movements such as temperance and women's suffrage. She died from a stroke in Boston on March 6, 1888, just two days after her father's death.

Reviews

[QNPoohBear · Rating 3 out of 5]

Louisa May Alcott is best known for her novel Little Women. She was an intensely private person who burned many of her private papers before her death. The editors of this volume have compiled selected letters sent from Louisa to friends, family, business contacts and a few special fans. Here you will read about her career from Moods, Work, Hospital Sketches, to Little Women, Jack and Jill and Jo's Boys.

Some of the letters include bits she put into her novels and some are dry business correspondence. She was a remarkably talented, intelligent woman who cared deeply about her family and chafed at the restrictions placed on her by the stuffy society in which she lived. Some of her comments are witty and some letters are dry business ones.

I was surprised by how much my hero bought into the "angel in the house" construct. I knew she was involved in woman suffrage and was among the first women to vote on the east coast. She also believed women should be allowed to work and get paid for that work. She was an early advocate of equal pay or equal work. She would seriously be upset at how little has changed since her day. Yet, she also felt women should make a cozy, happy, loving home for their family and that should be their main concern.

I knew she was in poor health due to possible mercury poisoning from the Calomel given to her when she contracted typhoid at a Washington field hospital during the Civil War. What I didn't know was how much she suffered and for how long. I can relate to being almost 40 and in chronic pain already. 40 was much older then and she felt even older.

The personal content includes her feelings on the numerous tragedies in her family and how much she hated being famous. (She satirizes her fame in Jo's Boys). Her notes to her niece Lulu are adorable and charming. They show a different side to Louisa, who mostly comes across as tough and more masculine than what was normal. She turns into a baby-talking doting auntie whenever she writes to Lulu. I didn't know much about Lulu before this so it was great to see another side of Louisa.

I especially liked the letters about her creative process and the mentions of numerous stories I have yet to read. Somewhere in this house I do have Under the Lilacs and A Garland For Girls. I had Jack and Jill but it has disappeared. I need to track down Lulu''s Library and Spinning Stories.

If you don't know a lot about Louisa, this is a good place to start.

[Kristi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading the letters and journals of Louisa May Alcott is the nearest we in the 21st century can come to meeting the woman herself. The letters arepithy, filled with classic Alcott comedy and wit. The letters are also moving in the tender reality of joys and sorrows lived.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars (some errors in the editors' notes and times when I wished for more information or letters that were left out docked the half star)

The first couple hundred pages of this are especially fun. LMA had a hard life, readily understood through biographies such as Marmee & Louisa or the Journal passages that are published in the matching edition. These letters, on the other hand, highlight her joy in life and her sense of humor. She makes several clever puns and her zest in general shines through. Reading her journals and letters in addition to biographies is giving me a much more nuanced understanding of her as a person. She had genuine regard for her father late in her life, but she also saw very little of him throughout his life and considered herself an orphan after her mother died. She also had complicated feelings about her writing and the merits of various stories or books she had written. I highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys reading letters by famous writers or is interested in LMA as a person.

[Nazilah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bukan buku yang menyedihkan karna ini sekadar kumpulan surat lama LMA, tapi entah aku dapet banget emosionalnya. Selama baca aku benar-benar mencoba membayangkan LMA sedang menulis suratnya. Disugguhi potret-potret lama yang membuat buku ini semakin membekas dihati.

[cathedralwindow85 of BRISEIS · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read these in Graduate Studies at Texas A&M, in Transcendentalism English studies class.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hawthorne. Louisa vs. Sophia Peabody Hawthorne.

Louisa May Alcott in letter to Adeline May about N. Hawthorne:

"dark mysterious looking man...expected the house of Alcott were about to rush out and clutch him."

p.57 [July? 1860?]

[Clem · Rating 4 out of 5]

'...she shows to be a very accurate letter writer....'