Customer Reviews

The Inheritance (Penguin Classics)

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I agree with the reader from Illinois...sure, it's not the best piece of work in the world, but you can see her talent and how she and her writing matured, making her one of the most popular authors. The story itself is very good, and the character development impressed me. It is somewhat predictable, but what do you expect from an aspiring 17 year old author?

I actually saw the TV movie first (that aired in 1997), and I enjoyed that so much that I wanted to read the book. I've been looking for the movie ever since, and finally just found it on video after searching for 3 years. (Drop me an email if you haven't found it yet...its hard to find) I would recommend both the book and the movie to anyone who enjoyed Alcott's "Little Women" and/or LM Montogmery's "Anne of Green Gables" series.

For a young lady at seventeen, I was impressed by the writing which obviously developed more as she grew up. This book was charming and it deserves five stars for the well character development and the plot which took me so far into the lives of everyone involved. As for the plot, I was astonished how much I was taken into each of the lives and empathized for the protagonists. The love and desire Lord Percy possessed for Edith was not only noble, but it encouraged me that there are still those who seek righteousness and purity. The story was simply delightful and I like to think Miss Alcott enjoyed the writing very much uplifting pure and innocent love. Bravo to the youth writer and to those who love sweet stories of true love or of classic writings, this is a charming romance to read.

According to a note on the text in the Penguin Classics edition, "The Inheritance" was written by Louisa May Alcott when she was only 17 years old. This novel tells the story of Edith Adelon, an Italian orphan who lives with the aristocratic Hamilton family. This is a sentimental, romantic story about love, treachery, and a family secret. Class stratification is a significant theme.

Yes, the characters are fairly shallow, the plot is predictable, and the dialogue is often very stiff and corny. But I found "The Inheritance" quite charming and enjoyable. The mild suspense leads ultimately to a satisfying conclusion. Along the way are some memorable scenes, such as a sequence involving the creation of historical tableaux.

The Penguin Classics edition includes an excellent, substantial introduction by Joel Myerson and Daniel Shealy. They discuss Alcott's remarkable life and career and place "The Inheritance" in literary and cultural context.

Alcott's first novel is a tale of the greatest love one human being can show another--that of friendship, respect, and honor. I find Lord Percy and Edith model characters of the way men and women should treat each other (both sexes). Excellent picker-upper-of-a-story, too. How can you not helped but be inspired by their examples, especially in contrast to Lady Ida and Lord Arlington. 5-stars in my book--it's a keeper!

This novel was a great find for Alcott fans. The very concept of a novel being discovered and published after the author's death is astounding! Here were get the opportunity to read the first work of the author of Little Women and a preview of LW. The moral concepts, within the fibre of this story, are very much the same. This is well written and I believe that readers will begin to care about what will happen to the main charactor, Edith Adelon. This story has all of the components of a great romance novel: impossible love, secrets, a villainess and a sweet ending. A must read for any Alcott fan!

This book is one of the best I've read! The movie left out some bits, so as usual the book is better than the movie. I would recomend this book for any one between the ages of 10 - 99!

The Inheritence is a must read for any Alcott reader. Since it is her first book out in a century, I think its an important book for any Alcott readers library. IF you are familiar with Alcott than you will be able to tell that this is one of her earliest works - it is not as refined, but it still holds the warmth that give her characters life. I'm so glad that this story was found in the archives and was published after years of dust.

I don't know why so many people put this book down! Well of course it's not as good as her other works... she was 17!! But I like to write stories too, and the amazing talent she had at 17 already surpasses mine as a college student! Quit reading it on the same level as the other books Louisa has written, and just enjoy the youthful simplicity of a budding talent! It's a great, simple, quick-reading story that people who are able to put their egos aside and get off their high horses can appreciate.

I am not a great fan of Mrs. Alcott, but when I began reading this book, I was immeditaly hooked. The plot was so interesting and something happened in each chapter--and whatever happened always had to do with Edith--wheather it was Lady Ida cursing her or Lord Percy admiring her--it always had to do with her. This book had a romantic feel to it, and it wasn't how I would have expected it to be. The romantic part was kept hush-hush amongst the charecters--but the irony of it was everyone knew about it. I really enjoyed this book and I recommend it to anyone who is looking for a new summer book. It's great!

Louisa May Alcott did it all, from dark thrillers and tragedies to the laid-back family of "Little Women." But it's not surprising that Alcott practically buried her first novel, "The Inheritance," which she wrote at the age of seventeen -- a gooey, cliched romance with a sickly-sweet heroine and a Tall Dark Handsome Man with a Tragic Past.

Edith Adelon is a penniless Italian orphan who lives on a rambling estate belonging to the wealthy, aristocratic Hamiltons. She was brought there at an early age to be the companion to daughter Amy. Edith's humility and goodness make her a favorite in that place, except to a relative of Lady Hamilton's, Ida Clare. Ida is not wealthy, though she is an aristocrat, and (by the standards of the day) is aging to old-maid-hood.

Things change drastically with the arrival of Lord Percy, a pal of Amy's brother Arthur. Despite Percy's broken heart, he begins to fall in love with Edith -- except Ida is determined to have him for herself. Around the time Edith nobly rejects her suitor (because they aren't on the same social level), a series of thefts are committed -- and she is the main suspect.

It's not hard to see why Alcott buried this novel in a trunk -- by the time she was a serious writer, it would have been painful to have people read this book. It's drips with gooey sentimentality and quite a few romantic cliches of the time -- the secret legacy, the rigid class system (where lowly peasants adore the nobility), the tragic secrets, the nasty nemesis who never does anything really evil, and the backdrops that are uniformly beautiful and majestic.

While Alcott's writing at this point was also quite cliched, it's also quite pretty. Assuming that you don't start rolling your eyes at the idea of a moonlit half-castle-half-mansion surrounded by green fields and a lake, that is. But once a bit of disbelief is suspended, the writing does seem quite lovely. The dialogue, however, is ridiculously ornate and self-deprecating.

Unfortunately, Alcott stumbles all over herself when she writes the characters -- Edith is a revoltingly sweet wilting lily, as well as being one of those people whose humility becomes almost a personality defect. She has no flaws, just virtues -- she's beautiful, swoons, and sings like an angel. She even takes soup to the sick. Lord Percy is not much better -- virtuous, sensitive, tragic, and utterly dull. And the flat supporting characters all serve merely to gush about how sweet and lovely Edith is, except for the tepidly malicious Ida.

Though it was later remade into a solid TV movie, "The Inheritance" is one of those very few Louisa May Alcott stories that deserves to have stayed buried. It has none of the charm of "Little Women," nor the cliched but well-written thrills of "Long Fatal Love Chase." Revoltingly sweet and cliched, this reads almost like a parody of the romantic genre.