Louisa May Alcott: From Blood & Thunder to Hearth & Home - Softcover

Stern, Madeline B.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1555533485 ISBN 13: 9781555533489

Publisher: Northeastern University Press, 1998

Synopsis

Louisa May Alcott's extensive oeuvre has intrigued and absorbed fans and literary scholars alike, perhaps none more so than Madeleine B. Stern, whose influential articles on Alcott's life and work span half a century. Stern attributes her long-time preoccupation "to a succession of literary discoveries and events as well as to periodic resurgences of popular interest in the Concord Scheherazade."

Now Stern brings together her essays for the first time in an engaging collection that illuminates Alcott's development as an individual and as a writer, revealing a surprisingly complex personality who penned sensational page-turners with one hand and domestic sagas with the other.

Stern's writings on the many-faceted Alcott draw on such overlooked sources as personal letters, local histories, genealogies, and playbills kept by the stage-struck author. The broad range of pieces traces the growing professionalism that led to Alcott's experiments with multiple genres and themes, uncovers her feminist and abolitionist convictions, and examines the discoveries that unmasked her double literary life.

This compilation by a distinguished Alcott scholar provides an innovative and in-depth portrait of a beloved American writer touched by genius. As Stern writes in her introduction: "The story of Louisa May Alcott is by no means over. A natural source of stories, she is also, and will continue to be a natural source of exploration and discovery."

About this title

About the Author

Madeleine B. Stern is partner in the firm of Rostenberg and Stern Rare Books. She has written and edited numerous books on nineteenth-century American literature and publishing history. She is the editor of several recent collections of Alcott's works, including The Feminist Alcott: Stories of a Woman's Power, From Jo March's Attic: Stories of Intrigue and Suspense, and Louisa May Alcott Unmasked: Collected Thrillers, all published by Northeastern University Press. Stern is also the co-author (with Leona Rostenberg) of the highly-acclaimed Old Books, Rare Friends: Two Literary Sleuths and Their Shared Passion. She lives in New York City.

Reviews

Rare book dealer Stern has been writing about 19th-century American literature and publishing for more than half a century, focusing much of her effort on Louisa May Alcott. She is responsible for unearthing much of Alcott's anonymous writings and the numerous short stories, serials, and filler pieces Alcott wrote under a pseudonym. Stern's exhaustive research has insured Alcott's place in the history of American letters beyond recognition for her famous juvenile novels. This collection of 16 essays, all previously published, spans Stern's five decades of professional interest in Alcott and presents an overview of Alcott's development both as a writer and as a businesswoman. Stern's introduction provides background on her own lifelong fascination with the subject, but some editorial remarks to link the essays together would have made for a stronger, more readable book. For comprehensive American literature or women's studies collections.?Denise S. Sticha, Seton Hill Coll., Greensburg, PA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Northeastern University Press
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1555533485
• ISBN 13: 9781555533489
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 274