Anne Boyd Rioux

This book was not what I expected based on the title and blurbs. I found "the story of Little Women" to be interesting and educational, especially discussions of why certain publication or editing choices were made and some of the context surrounding the book, but "why it still matters" was lacking and filled with repetitive lists of authors who have spoken about Little Women or alluded to the book in their own work, and not a whole lot about how the story fits into contemporary fiction or show more the value it has for modern readers.

Especially in the last third of the book, the author's expertise in 19th century American literature was really obvious - Rioux expresses disdain and dissatisfaction with nearly every aspect of modern writing for young people without analyzing why young people or educators might find value in these new books. It is a crying shame to Rioux that Little Women isn't in the top list of books that kids read, but discussion of the books replacing it is mostly about how terrible they are. It's true that a lot of books for kids elevate boys and ignore girls, but that isn't the only reason why Little Women has fallen, but that's the only one Rioux gives that doesn't amount to basically "kids these days!" or "back in my time, children were polite and respectful".

The middle third of the book felt like an endless list of so-and-so quoted Little Women or so-and-so said they really liked Little Women as a kid. Annotated bibliographies are great, but not what I was hoping to get from this particular book, and especially not when the analysis I looked for is so lacking.

Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy would have been much better if the "why it still matters" part were written by someone who specializes in the sociology of childhood, in children's literature, or especially in modern books and children's culture. I can think of so many ways to show how Little Women continues to influence writing for kids other than the 4-sisters set-up or outright fanfiction, but Rioux doesn't do that. I wish she had, but then again, her speciality is 19th century American literature, and for her, there seems to be a clear split: either you get The Gossip Girls or you get Little Women and there's no room to appreciate the value of both for young readers. show less

[Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist] by [[Anne Boyd Rioux]]

On a recent vacation to Mackinac Island, I heard about a 19th century American woman author who was famous enough to have a statue dedicated to her and the novel she set on Mackinac Island, but who I had never heard of. I am no literary expert, but I do have a strong interest in the time period and in female authors, so I was embarrassed that I didn't know Constance Fenimore Woolson. My husband and boys had quite show more a good time making fun of me for not knowing her, by the way.

Anyway, I found this book in a bookstore on the island and purchased it. In reading it, I realized I had heard of her, but as a friend and companion to the more famous (male) author, [Henry James]. Through this book, I learned of Woolson's considerable talent as an author in her own right. Woolson approached writing with a need to support herself. She stayed single throughout her life, and her career was full of struggles trying to make it as a writer as an unmarried woman. Her first novel, [Anne] was very popular and sold well. It is typical of her writing in that it had a strong local American setting, Mackinac Island. It also is untypical of her later novels in that it has a "popular" feel - fast-moving plot, love story, mystery, and everything else exciting you can think of. If she had continued writing in this vein, Woolson might have been more successful monetarily because she would have better fit the mold of "woman writer" that existed then. But because she viewed her writing as a craft and wanted to write artistic works, her later novels weren't considered "women's books" but nor did they measure up to her male author counterparts - well, according to her male reviewers. Also, when women's novels were "rediscovered" in the late 1900s, Woolson's work again didn't fit the mold that this time female literary critics were looking for. Her books were often written from the perspective of male characters and didn't have the same focus on women's lives that other restored women authors did. Woolson's fame dwindled through her lifetime and certainly after her death because of all of these things.

I loved reading about her exhaustive approach to writing. When Woolson got an idea for a new novel she would begin with elaborate plot outline, detailed character descriptions, long conversations between characters, and extended scene-setting passages. She would fill multiple notebooks with this preparatory work before even beginning to piece the novel together.

Woolson was good friends with Henry James. She lived in Europe for most of her adult life and the two spent a lot of time together and had mutual friends. I was very happy, though, that the author keeps the focus on Woolson instead of the more famous James.

Woolson's life came to a dramatic end when she committed suicide while living in Italy. Her money issues, hearing loss, isolation, illness, and doubts about her writing ability combined disastrously with a genetic predisposition to depression.

I enjoyed learning about this new-to-me author and intend to read a few of her novels in the near future. show less

2018 marks the 150th anniversary of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, a novel which became a trendsetter best seller, influencing generations of girls.

Anne Boyd Rioux's new book Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: the Story of Little Women and Why They Still Matter celebrates the novel's history, legacy, and influence.

I don't recall when I first read Little Women. I was given a copy of Alcott's later novel Eight Cousins when I was in elementary school. Madame Alexander created Little Women dolls, and in show more 1960 to 1962 my great-grandmother gifted me Marmee, Beth, Amy and Meg. I never got a Jo doll for sadly she passed away in 1963. By then, I must have read the book or seen the movie, because I recall thinking that Amy was spoiled and I did not like her. I always liked Jo because she was a writer and at age nine I had decided I wanted to be an author when I grew up.

Meg, Beth, Jo, Amy is more than a nostalgic look at the novel, for Rioux seeks to answer the question of what the novel offers to young readers today. Is it still relevant?

But first, she turns her attention to The Making of a Classic, presenting Alcott 's family and personal history, how they were fictionalized in the novel, how she came to write the novel and its early success.

Although the novel was inspired by the Alcott's family experiences, it was a very much idealized version of their life. Bronson Alcott held ideals that did not include worldly considerations so that his wife and daughters had to struggle to provide for their daily needs. He may have had episodes of mental instability. Louisa was perhaps a genius, but she also had to write to contribute to the family coffers.

Alcott never meant to marry off all the March girls, save Beth who dies. But the publisher insisted. Jo was at least allowed to marry on her own terms, and her husband and she run a school together.

This section alone was fascinating for those of us who love the novel.

The various printings of the novel, the illustrators (including those by May Alcott) are also presented.

In Part II, The Life of a Classic, follows the novel's adaptation for the screen and stage--including a musical and an opera--and their influence. I recently viewed the last adaptation, the BBC/PBS television series on Masterpiece Theater, which I very much enjoyed.

Rioux then turns her attention to the novel's Cultural and Literary Influence, including how it has dropped off the literary canon and has been marginalized as a 'girl's book.' And yet the novel had "more influence on women writers as a group than any other single book," Rioux writes, and she quotes dozens of writers extolling its inspiration. Little Women's legacy includes novels such as Anne of Green Gables by L. M Montgomery and Hermonine Granger in the Harry Potter novels by J. K. Rowling.

Is the novel an idealized version of life, or does it reflect reality? G. K. Chesterton thought Alcott "anticipated realism by twenty or thirty years," while many 20th c writers found it preachy and, in short, too feminine. Gloria Steinem and Germaine Greer both loved Little Women, while other feminists rejected the novel.

Is Little Women still relevant today, and why should it continue to be read, is probed in Part III: A Classic for Today.

In recent years fewer children have read Little Women, and that is in part because educational standards became slanted toward boys and their needs and interests. Even if Teddy Roosevelt liked the book as a boy, today's boys won't pick up a book that is girlish. That's why some writers use initials instead of first names--so the boy readers won't know the books are written by a female! Sadly, few books by women appear on school reading lists.

What is lost when boy don't read about family and community? Have we 'hypermasculinized' boys and condoned intolerance of the feminine?

Last of all, Rioux looks at the role models girls today have, from Disney princesses to the action heroines and warrior princesses, Rory Gilmore to Girls.

As a novel about young girls growing up, the March sisters offer readers images of what it means to be a girl and the choices girls have.

The novel, Rioux says, "is about learning to live with and for others," and it is about the compromises we make in life.

I highly recommend this book.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review. show less

I’m famously bad at reading non-fiction these days – but the one type of non-fiction I am most likely to read is that of literary biography.

Constance Fenimore Woolson was an American nineteenth century novelist, who seems to have slipped into obscurity. Today it seems she is best known for having had a very close friendship with Henry James and for having taken her own life. The author of this biography, Anne Boyd Rioux is doing a superb job in reigniting interest in her. This biography show more is a brilliantly researched work, compulsively readable and detailed. However it is the narrative of Constance Fenimore Woolson’s life, her family, travels, writing and friendships which make this such an absorbing read. From never having heard of Constance Fenimore Woolson just a couple of months ago – I now feel like I know her very well indeed.

“To begin to understand how Woolson ended up dying alone, in the cold street behind her home in Venice, we have to begin by looking at her life through her eyes instead of James’s. When we do we see a life full of heartache, hope, and ambition that started in a conservative era and ended just as the New Woman was being born. We begin to see a powerful writer and conflicted woman who was not simply James’s follower but his friend and peer. We also find a woman of great wit and compassion, a woman passionate about art, literature , and love, and a woman at war with herself – in short a woman as beguiling as any of James’s heroines.”
(From the Prologue to Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist)

Constance Fenimore Woolson was born in 1840 in Claremont, New Hampshire, one of a large family of siblings – many of whom did not survive childhood. A grand-niece of James Fenimore Cooper, Constance was to grow up in Cleveland, Ohio – where the family relocated when she was a baby following the deaths of three daughters to scarlet fever. As she grew up Constance had a particularly close to her sister Clara born a couple of years after her. She and Clara were educated at the Cleveland female seminary and later at a boarding school in New York. CFW began publishing her fiction in the 1870’s after the death of her father, beginning with short stories. During the 1870’s Constance accompanied her mother to St. Augustine in Florida for the winter, during these visits she was able to travel widely in the South, and these travels inspired several of her stories.

In 1880 CFW published her first novel for adults; Anne, she had however already published a children’s book under the pseudonym Anne March in 1873. Four more novels and a novella followed as well as more stories, travel sketches and poetry.

Following her mother’s death Constance felt able to travel to Europe, something she had always wanted to do. In 1879 she and Clara and Clara’s daughter landed in England, from where they travelled to France Germany and Italy.

“As the train lurched through the frozen French countryside, a porter came into the train compartment and took from beneath Constance’s feet the tin box full of water that was more valuable to her than precious jewels. He would soon return with it full of hot water, but in the meantime she, Clara and Claire, now twelve, shivered and complained bitterly. They could see nothing out of the frosted windows.
The travellers spent the night in Lyon, where the piles of snow reached their heads, and in the morning boarded another frigid train to Marseille. During the day, the window began to clear, and the white countryside gradually gave way to fields and vineyards, with chateaux and castles dotting the landscape. Constance began to revive. The next day, she gradually unpeeled the layers of cloaks and wraps that had failed to keep her warm. The tin box was taken away for good. Finally they reached the Riviera and the bluest sea Constance had ever seen.”

With her Constance carried a letter of introduction to Henry James from his cousin. In time Clara returned to the States but Constance never did, in later years she would occasionally talk about going home to America but apart from a trip to Egypt in 1889 she remained in Europe for the rest of her life. Constance Fenimore Woolson and Henry James met in Florence, in 1880 while ‘the Master’ as he came to be known was working on Portrait of a Lady. Over the next fourteen years the two became intimate friends, there were times when James was away from CFW caring for his sister in England, and CFW had to rise above some of his criticism of her work – (he praised it too) the two appear to have meant a great deal to one another and Constance became friendly with Henry’s adored sister Alice too. There has been a lot of speculation about the relationship between the two writers; Colm Tóíbín has apparently touched upon the relationship in his novel The Master – which I am keen to read now.

In this biography Anne Boyd Rioux portrays the friendships which meant so much to CFW during her years in Italy with great understanding. Constance became good friends with Francis Boott, his daughter Lizzie and son in law who lived with him. She adored the baby son born to Lizzie, and next to Henry James the family were her greatest friends. When Boott returned to the States she missed him terribly. In later years Constance suffered from ill health, she had suffered from deafness for many years which had brought a sad end to her enjoyment of music. Towards the end of her life, Constance found herself short of money, unwell, lonely and often depressed. The last view we have of Constance therefore is a rather sad one.

Last week I reviewed a new collection of Constance Fenimore Woolson’s short stories edited by Anne Boyd Rioux I loved them. Having now read the biography which contains details of Woolson’s novels and short stories – I wonder whether her novels were just not destined to stand the test of time. Now perhaps a new generation of readers can decide for themselves as many of her works are available as e-books. I thought her short stories were excellent – and I suspect they represent some of her greatest writing. I hope very much I shall be able to get hold of more of her short stories in the future. There is also at least one of CFW’s novels that I would like to read however some of the others I was less sure of. Still all that is beside the point – because reading about CFW I became fascinated by the woman, her life, her work her travels and of course her friendship with Henry James about which not that much is known due to the deliberate destruction of many letters. CFW was buried in the protestant cemetery in Rome and there is a commemoration to her on Mackinac Island in Michigan called Anne’s tablet.

Anne Boyd Rioux’s biography does a wonderful job at exploring the woman who has appeared as a shadow behind her friend – now her own story, and her work can stand alone – no longer I hope, a footnote in the life of another. show less