Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) is arguably the most widely read 19th-century author in America. Even through the 1990s, her books continued to appear on bestseller lists and her works were made into films. She has long been a staple of children's literature courses and now also receives significant attention in American studies and women's studies classes. While her tremendous popularity has yielded numerous biographies and a growing number of critical works, very few reference books have been devoted to Alcott studies and none are particularly current or complete. This book collects in a comprehensive and reliable single volume the most important facts about Alcott's life and works. This reference surveys the basic biographical details about Alcott's family and personal life. It supplies essential information on her historical and cultural contexts, including her place in the 19th century publishing milieu, various reform movements, and major historical events, such as the Civil War. It also treats her writings, both the adult and children's works, in an accurate, informative, and accessible manner. The volume includes more than 600 alphabetically arranged entries. Each entry discusses the topic's relevance to Alcott's life and current scholarship about her. Many of the entries close with brief bibliographies, and the book concludes with a list of works for further reading.

Virtue theory, natural law, deontology, utilitarianism, existentialism: these are the basic moral theories taught in "Ethics," "History of Philosophy," and "Introduction to Philosophy" courses throughout the United States. When the American philosopher William James (1842 - 1910) find his way into these conversations, there is uncertainty about where his thinking fits. While utilitarianism has become the default position for teaching James's pragmatism and radical empiricism, this default position fails to address and explain James's multiple criticisms of John Stuart Mill's formulaic approach to questions concerning the moral life. Through close readings of James's writings, the chapters in William James, Moral Philosophy, and the Ethical Life catalogue the ways in which James wants to avoid the following: (a) the hierarchies of Christian natural law theory, (b) the moral calculus of Mill's utilitarianism, (c) the absolutism and principle-ism of Immanuel Kant's deontology, and (d) the staticity of the virtues found in Aristotle's moral theory. Elaborating upon and clarifying James's differences from these dominant moral theories is a crucial feature of this collection. This collection, is not, however, intended to be wholly negative - that is, only describing to readers what James's moral theory is not. It seeks to articulate the positive features of James's ethics and moral reasoning: what does it mean to an ethical life, and how should we theorize about morality?

Virtue theory, natural law, deontology, utilitarianism, existentialism: these are the basic moral theories taught in "Ethics," "History of Philosophy," and "Introduction to Philosophy" courses throughout the United States. When the American philosopher William James (1842 - 1910) find his way into these conversations, there is uncertainty about where his thinking fits. While utilitarianism has become the default position for teaching James's pragmatism and radical empiricism, this default position fails to address and explain James's multiple criticisms of John Stuart Mill's formulaic approach to questions concerning the moral life. Through close readings of James's writings, the chapters in William James, Moral Philosophy, and the Ethical Life catalogue the ways in which James wants to avoid the following: (a) the hierarchies of Christian natural law theory, (b) the moral calculus of Mill's utilitarianism, (c) the absolutism and principle-ism of Immanuel Kant's deontology, and (d) the staticity of the virtues found in Aristotle's moral theory. Elaborating upon and clarifying James's differences from these dominant moral theories is a crucial feature of this collection. This collection, is not, however, intended to be wholly negative - that is, only describing to readers what James's moral theory is not. It seeks to articulate the positive features of James's ethics and moral reasoning: what does it mean to an ethical life, and how should we theorize about morality?

"Backgrounds and Contexts" includes a wealth of archival materials, among them previously unpublished correspondence with Thomas Niles and Alcott's own precursors to Little Women. "Criticism" reprints twenty nineteenth-century reviews. Seven modern essays represent a variety of critical theories used to read and study the novel, including feminist (Catharine R. Stimpson, Elizabeth Keyser), new historicist (Richard H. Brodhead), psychoanalytic (Angela M. Estes and Kathleen Margaret Lant), and reader-response (Barbara Sicherman). A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.