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L(ouisa) M(ay) Alcott (1832-1888) - pseudonyms: A. Barnard, Flora Fairfield | |
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American author, known for her children' books, especially Little Women (1868-69). Alcott draws her material from her own family and from the New England milieu where she had grown up. Originally she begun writing 'rubbish novels', sometimes anonymously, sometimes as 'A.N. Barnard', to contribute to the family income. Above man's aims his nature rose. Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown (now part of Philadelphia), the second of four daughters of Abigail May Alcott and Bronson Alcott (1799-1888). During her childhood the family moved to Boston. She spent most of her life in the Boston-Concord area, and received almost all her early education from her father. His favorite moral guide was Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Bronson was member of the New England Transcendentalists. He was an idealistic, if impractical person, who believed in the spiritual life, as contrasted with the material life. Louisa May called him "the modern Plato". When a visiting English author criticized his teaching methods, he moved with his family to Concord. Among the family friends were Theodore Parker, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Bronson's ideas influenced a numer of educators, but nowadays his books are no loger widely read. He wrote also poems. Sonnets and Canzonets (1882) was written in memory of his wife. Diana and Persis, which Alcott started to write in 1879, was based on her sister May's life and unconventional marriage in Europe. Alcott began to keep diary at the age of seven. At age of fifteen she began to regard Goethe as her "chief idol", and was deeply impressed by Goethe's Correspondence with a Child, which Emerson gave her. Also the Brontë family inspired her, especially Charlotte Brontë. Alcott's first book, Flower Fables (1854), a collection of tales, was originally written for Emerson's daughter Ellen. After the failure of her father's utopian community Fruitlands, she took care with her mother of the welfare of the family. In one sonnet her father praised Louisa May as "duty's faithful child". Alcott's mother had not been so enthusiastic about the New Eden plan of her husband. The family moved into Boston again. In Work: A Story of Experience (1873) Alcott later recorded her unhappy experiences as a domestic servant, but also demonstrated through her character alternative values, such as equality and self-fulfillment, for women. Committed to social reform, Alcott often signed her letters "Yours for reform of all kinds." While working in Dedham, she was obligued to listen the philosophing of her employer. When she was expected to black his boots, she quit the job. "No, dear; the dress is proper and becoming as it is, and the old fashion of simplicity the best for all of us. I don't want my Polly to be loved for her clothes, but for herself; so wear the plain frocks mother took such pleasure in making for you, and let the panniers go. The least of us have some influence in this big world; and perhaps my little girl can do some good by showing others that a contended heart and a happy face are better ornaments than any Paris can give her." (from An Old-fashioned Girl) By 1860 Alcott's short stories and poems began to appear in the Atlantic Monthly (now The Atlantic). An ardent abolitionist, she volunteered in the American Civil War as a nurse. "Go nurse the soldiers," had her neighbor said, when she had stated: "I want something to do." In 1862-1863 Alcott served at the Union Hospital in Georgetown, D.C. During this time she contracted typhoid and was forced to return home. Alcott was treated with large doses of calomel, a mercury compound. She never completely recovered from the cure. In 1863 Alcott published her letters in book form under the title Hospital Sketches. The work was well received although some of her readers objected "the tone of levity." Hospital Sketches encouraged Alcott to continue with her writing aspirations. Alcott's first novel was Moods (1867). A Long Fatal Love Chase, a tale about obsession, which she wrote in 1866 for magazine serialization, was not published in book until 1995. The story was considered by Alcott's publisher "too sensational." The heroine, Rosamond, is pursued across Europe by the diabolic Philip Tempest, who first nearly manages to get her under his spell. "I like danger," she tells Tempest, before he has revealed his true nature. In 1867 Alcott became editor of a children's magazine, Merry Museum. With the publication of Little Women, which was born under the pressure of financial need, Alcott gained enormous fame as a writer. As a model for the character Amy she took May Alcott, her sister. Anna was the model for Meg, and Abba May Alcott the beloved mother Marmee. In Part II May Alcott's drawings were replaced by illustrations by Hamnatt Billings. Little Women was published in two parts in 1868 and 1869 – the second part under the title Good Wives. Originally Alcott was asked to write a "girls' story" for Thomas Niles, a partner in the Boston firm of Roberts Brothers. She agreed, but wrote in her journal: "I plod away, though I don't really enjoy this sort of thing. Never liked girls or knew many, except my sisters, but our queer plays and experiences may prove interesting, though I doubt it." In 1880 the book was published in a somewhat bowdlerized edition, which remained the basis for the subsequent editions. An excerpt from the novel, 'A March Christmas', has been reprinted numerous times. Set in a quiet Massachusetts town, Little Women starts from the years of the American Civil War. Meg, Jo, Bert, and Amy March are raised in genteel poverty by their loving mother Marmee. Their father serves as a Civil War preacher. The girls entertain themselves by producing plays and a weekly newspaper. Soon they befriend Theodore Lawrence, who is the grandson of a rich old man. Some years pass. Meg marries Laurie's tutor John Brooke, Beth's health deteriorates and eventually dies from scarlet fever. Laurie falls in love with Jo, but he is turned down and flees with his grandfather to Europe. Amy and Laurie became engaged abroad. Jo's choices are crucial for the development of the events. Jo, a version of the author herself, vows never to marry. She wants to be a journalist, but she is frustrated with her role and tight Christian values. She goes to New York and continues to write. Finally Jo marries Professor Bhaer, an older scholar from Germany, although he has discouraged her writing. Together they set up a school for boys. Feminist critics have concluded that Jo's decision means actually self-denial and regression. Later Alcott wrote to a friend about Jo's marriage: "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 didn't dare to refuse and out of perversity went and made a funny match for her." Clive Bloom sees Little Women as a perfect example of the evolution of the novel from its early days in Walter Scott. The writing is self-conscious and aware of the importance of the novel both as entertainment, art and moral instrument. It was also produced for the new audience – young people. (See: Cult Fiction by Clive Bloom, 1996). The book has fascinated such writers as Simone de Beauvoir, Gertrude Stein, and Joyce Carol Oates. Little Women has been filmed several times. The screenwriters Sarah Y. Mason and Victor Heerman received an Academy Award for best adapted screenplay for the 1933 version, directed by George Cukor and starring Katherine Hepburn. Mervyn LeRoy's adaptation from 1949 is considered mediocre. It also softens Jo's beliefs in an autonomous life. Gillian Armstrong's version (1994), adapted by Robin Swicord, dealt with feminist issues. "In writing the screenplay, Swicord views this story as a tale of strong women, and she ideally wants young girls to come away from the film with a sense of validation and feeling stronger in this male-dominated world." (from Novels into Film by John C. Tibbetts and James M. Welsh, 1999) Other film adaptations of Alcott's work include The Inheritance (1997), directed by Bobby Roth, starring Meredith Baxter and Tom Conti. Also Little Men has inspired filmmakers. Little Women was followed by several other popular works, Little Men (1871), Jo's Boys (1886), and others, in which she followed the lives of the March family girls, Meg, Beth, Amy and Jo. Alcott's last years were shadowed by the deaths of her mother and her sister May, who left behind a little daughter, Louisa May Nieriker. She gained fame as an artists. She lived in Boston, London and Paris, where she died in 1879. Among her literary works were Concord Sketches (1869) and Art Studying Abroad (1879). For her Alcott wrote the story 'Lu Sing', later published in the St. Nicholas magazine in 1902. It was the last work she completed. Louisa May Alcott died from intestinal cancer in Boston on March 6, 1888, a few days after her father had died. She never married. Once Alcott said of herself: "I am more than half-persuaded that I am a man's soul, put by some freak of nature into a woman's body". Although Alcott is often considered as a juvenile writer (her first biographer, Ednah Dow Chaney, labelled her as "The Children's Friend"), she published also thrillers and melodramatic stories that appeared in weekly magazines. For her thrillers published in the mid-1860s she used the ambiguous pseudonym "A.N. Barnard". A Modern Mephistopheles (1877) was published anonymously. The Faustian story of a young woman and a diabolic genius was republished posthumously with A Whisper in the Dark (1889). 'Behind a Mask', which originally appeared anonymously in The Flag of Our Union (1866) portrays a deceitful governess, who uses her skills as a former actress to find a rich husband. Alcott's revengeful heroines and themes from mind control and madness, hashish experimentation and opium addiction, differ radically from the domestic atmosphere of her best-known works. For further reading: Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father by John Matteson (2008); Little Women & the Feminist Imagination, ed. by Jack David Zipes, Beverly L. Clark, Janice M. Alberghene (1998); Louisa May Alcott by Amy Katheran Ruth (1998); Louisa May Alcott by Kathleen Burke, Matina S. Horner (1998); Invincible Louisa by Cornelia Meigs (1933, reissued in 1991); Louisa May by Norma Johnston (1991); 'The Domestic Drama of Louisa May Alcott' by Karen Halttunen, in Feminist Studies 10 (1984); The Alcotts: Biography of a Family by Madelon Bedell (1980): Louisa May Alcott: A Modern Biography by Martha Saxton (1977); Louisa May Alcott, ed. by Madeleine B. Stern (1950); Marmee: The Mother of Little Women by Sanford Salyer (1949); Louisa May Alcott by Katharine Anthony (1938); May Alcott: A Memoir by Caroline Ticknor (1928); Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters and Journals, ed. by Ednah D. Cheney (1889) - See other classic writers of children's literature: L. M. Montgomery, Astrid Lindgren Selected works:
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