Louisa May Alcott Unmasked: Collected Thrillers
by Louisa May Alcott
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One of America's most adored juvenile fiction writers, Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) also penned anonymous and pseudonymous sensation stories for popular magazines. Her spellbinding tales of intrigue and suspense, violence and evil, jealousy and revenge, were uncovered by the detective work of Madeleine Stern and others, who scrutinized published and unpublished sources for clues to Alcott's secret literary life. Now Alcott's known thrillers are available for the first time in a single show more volume. Originally published between 1863 and 1870, these twenty-nine tales illuminate Alcott's versatility as a writer and her storytelling talents. The sensation stories, which feature a succession of powerful and passionate heroines, also reveal Alcott's feminist convictions. Alcott wrote for various magazines geared toward different groups of readers, and her works were tailored to conform to the standards and perceived interests of each audience. Serials carried by Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, with its mass readership, were sensational shockers that contained violent themes of narcotics addiction and brutal murder, while the stories for Frank Leslie's Lady's Magazine required genteel overtones and less violent plots. The toned-down sensationalism, however, did not preclude feminist heroines, or the titillation of sexual exchanges and the excitement of sexual power struggles. All the tales in Louisa May Alcott Unmasked are engaging potboilers with vivid characters, exotic backdrops, and complex plots that will beguile today's readers. show lessTags
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Yes, it took 2 plus years but I did finally finish up this massive anthology of all of Louisa May Alcott's known (at the time) gothic thrillers. I dipped in and out of it but I did enjoy the stories. The longer ones were better, with more convoluted plots and cliffhangers, but the short ones could pack a punch. Lots of intrigue and hidden identities and romance and love dashed to pieces or happily ever after. I liked thinking how it felt to read these in VIctorian magazines at the time. Quite enjoyable.
Not the Alcott you know from "Little Women," which personally, I found boring and difficult to finish. Alcott's thrillers are, well, thrilling -- they're still suspenseful and gripping a century and a half after they were written. The stories, with all their romances and intrigues, are compelling; even with the number of tales included in this anthology, it's difficult to predict what plot twists Alcott will throw in next, and whether her characters will be granted a happy ending or not. The last ones dragged for me, as I found the longer works more richly developed, but all in all, well-worth the time to savor each story as one reads their way through this massive volume.
Interesting. Not Louisa May Alcott's best work, but there are some interesting stories in this book.
May have read part, but no record.
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Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 1832. Two years later, she moved with her family to Boston and in 1840 to Concord, which was to remain her family home for the rest of her life. Her father, Bronson Alcott, was a transcendentalist and friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Alcott early realized that her show more father could not be counted on as sole support of his family, and so she sacrificed much of her own pleasure to earn money by sewing, teaching, and churning out potboilers. Her reputation was established with Hospital Sketches (1863), which was an account of her work as a volunteer nurse in Washington, D.C. Alcott's first works were written for children, including her best-known Little Women (1868--69) and Little Men: Life at Plumfield with Jo's Boys (1871). Moods (1864), a "passionate conflict," was written for adults. Alcott's writing eventually became the family's main source of income. Throughout her life, Alcott continued to produce highly popular and idealistic literature for children. An Old-Fashioned Girl (1870), Eight Cousins (1875), Rose in Bloom (1876), Under the Lilacs (1878), and Jack and Jill (1881) enjoyed wide popularity. At the same time, her adult fiction, such as the autobiographical novel Work: A Story of Experience (1873) and A Modern Mephistopheles (1877), a story based on the Faust legend, shows her deeper concern with such social issues as education, prison reform, and women's suffrage. She realistically depicts the problems of adolescents and working women, the difficulties of relationships between men and women, and the values of the single woman's life. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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