Louisa May Alcott was ten years old when her father decided to move the family to a farm called Fruitlands, to dress everybody in identical linen trousers, to give up sugar, milk, even honey. He had wanted to show the world how to live a pure life without money, and without exploiting other people or animals. Though at first this "Newness" seemed exciting to Louisa and her sisters-could they make a difference in how other people thought? Could they live on love alone?-the children soon saw that it was hard work, sometimes too hard, for a family to be so noble. After nearly nine months of trying to live a pure life, when the family was almost both starving and freezing to death, when all the other friends and helpers had given up on the utopian vision, the Alcotts finally moved back to town. But the experience would stay with Louisa May Alcott forever.
Using fragments of Louisa May Alcott's diary, as well as the writing of others who lived at Fruitlands, Jeannine Atkins has recreated what it must have been like for the future author of Little Women to spend that fascinating, but ultimately, frightening year of self-sacrifice.
Using fragments of Louisa May Alcott's diary, as well as the writing of others who lived at Fruitlands, Jeannine Atkins has recreated what it must have been like for the future author of Little Women to spend that fascinating, but ultimately, frightening year of self-sacrifice.
