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The Selected Letters of Louisa May Alcott (Paperback, New edition) Loot Price: R1,115
Discovery Miles 11 150

The Selected Letters of Louisa May Alcott (Paperback, New edition)

Louisa M. Alcott; Volume editing by Joel Myerson, Daniel Shealy; Introduction by Madeleine B. Stern

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Loot Price R1,115 Discovery Miles 11 150 | Repayment Terms: R104 pm x 12*

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The first extensive edition of the letters of America's most famous children's author. Most likely Alcott's letters will not sit on the bedside table next to Little Women as favorite out-loud reading for children. These 271 letters will, however, provide pleasant reading for adults curious about the real Jo March and her family. As in the lives of her heroines, overcoming poverty is a persistent theme in the life of Alcott. Her father, Bronson Alcott, an idealistic reformer and educator and close friend of Emerson and Thoreau, failed to provide adequately for his family - so Louisa found herself at an early age earning money as a seamstress, maid, and writer. (The family was never solvent until she published Little Women.) Alcott, like her British contemporary, Dickens, who also suffered extreme financial hardships in his youth, became in later life a "workaholic," writing incessantly to make life better for "Marmee" and her sisters. Unlike Dickens, however, who never forgave his irresponsible father, Louisa is Bronson's fierce defender. The letters to Bronson are among the most delicately felt in the book. And unlike him, Louisa was a hardheaded business woman who knew her worth, so we find a number of sharp letters complaining about low fees, late payments, and pirated foreign editions. Louisa also ranges beyond financial matters to give us a vivid picture of literary and family life in 19th-century Boston. Not a studied letter writer - her efforts have the immediacy of having been dashed off between making the bed and finishing up a tale for the Atlantic Monthly - Alcott nonetheless has left plenty of fodder for her admirers. (Kirkus Reviews)
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 reflected: 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.

General

Imprint: University of Georgia Press
Country of origin: United States
Release date: August 1995
First published: August 1995
Authors: Louisa M. Alcott
Volume editors: Joel Myerson • Daniel Shealy
Introduction by: Madeleine B. Stern
Dimensions: 230 x 152 x 26mm (L x W x T)
Format: Paperback
Pages: 352
Edition: New edition
ISBN-13: 978-0-8203-1740-3
Categories: Books > Language & Literature > Biography & autobiography > General
Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Literary studies > 19th century
Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Novels, other prose & writers > General
Books > Biography > General
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LSN: 0-8203-1740-3
Barcode: 9780820317403

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