The Journals of Louisa May Alcott [Paperback]

Louisa May Alcott (Author), Joel Myerson (Editor), Daniel Shealy (Editor), Madeleine B. Stern (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1997

From her eleventh year to the month of her death at age fifty-five, Louisa May Alcott kept copious journals. She never intended them to be published, but the insights they provide into her remarkable life are invaluable.

Alcott grew up in a genteel but impoverished household, surrounded by the literary and philosophical elite of nineteenth-century New England, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Like her fictional alter ego, Jo March, she was a free spirit who longed for independence, yet she dutifully supported her parents and three sisters with her literary efforts. In the journals are to be found hints of Alcott's surprisingly complex persona as well as clues to her double life as an author not only of "high" literature but also of serial thrillers and Gothic romances.

Associate editor Madeleine B. Stern has added an in-depth introduction to The Journals of Louisa May Alcott, the only unabridged edition of Alcott's private diaries.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Prepared by the editors of Alcott's letters and recently discovered thrillers, this volume deepens appreciation for the industrious author. The journals open in 1843, when "LMA" was 11, and continue through March 1888, four days before her death at age 56. One grows to feel close to the Alcotts of Concord, Mass.--like the Marches of Little Women , kept poor by the father's visionary schemes. As a girl, Louisa became the chief supporter of her parents and siblings, working at menial jobs, but always writing (and prudently tailoring stories and poems to specific markets). There is no lack of love in the author's references to her dependents, but she sometimes confessed to envying the security that her labor gave them. Alcott's journals offer a literate, poignant, often humorous portrait of a singular woman. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

The editors of this text have collected diaries, journals, and year-end "Notes and Memoranda" and from them assembled a single continuous chronological record of Alcott's life from her first entry in 1843 to the end of her life in 1888. For the most part, the entries are the sketchy unartistic fare that comprise diary entries (even those of gifted writers), but there are moments both touching and memorable--a recollection of a weary Bronson Alcott returning home from a disastrous lecture tour and anecdotes of the wounded in a Union hospital. Notes providing numerous identifications and directing the reader to sources for further study follow the entries for each year. Most useful to the student interested in circumstances of composition since it evidences Alcott's state of mind at various times and her attitudes toward major events, but not essential.
- Frank Pisano, Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: University of Georgia Press (October 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0820319503
• ISBN-13: 978-0820319506
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,105,508 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An intimate view of a 19th Century author's life, June 6, 2004

By 

R. Tiedemann "Sunnye" (Bellevue, NE USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Journals of Louisa May Alcott (Paperback)

When Louisa May Alcott's biography was published shortly after her death in 1888, a reviewer lamented, "We wish heartily that Miss Alcott had chosen to tell her own story." She does in these journals.

Through her father's influence as well as the emerging recogniton of her own devleoping talent, Alcott met many of the masters of American literature in her day: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne -- all of whom are mentioned often in her journals among her everyday struggles to support her family with her writing. She learned her craft by writing thrillers for tabloids while working as a domestic in wealthy households.

Louisa Alcott never intended for these pages to be read so reading them is an extremely personal experience. The reader gains an intimate insight into the life and mind of one of America's premiere 19th century women writers. Louisa was a poor speller, we learn, and we also learn how she felt about abolition, the Civil War, educational reform, women's rights and many other issues including arguments she had with her editors.

Reading JOURNALS was an intense experience that transported me into her time and her life. If you grew up reading LITTLE WOMEN and LITTLE MEN you'll thoroughly enjoy this look at a remarkable author's life.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insight into Louisa May Alcott, September 22, 2008

By 

Virginia Allain "(retired librarian)" (Poinciana, FL) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Journals of Louisa May Alcott (Paperback)

What a treat it is to read about the life of this great children's author from her own pen. This covers 45 years of Louisa May Alcott's life from her childhood to her death. One see parallels between Little Women and Alcott's real life family and situations. Notes by the editors at the end of each year fill in some of the gaps. Louisa often used initials so the notes flesh out the details.
What an interesting life she lived with the Civil War, women's suffrage and her family's noted literary and philosophical links. It's a little disappointing that her final years are covered so sketchily in the journals, but her health problems and family duties interfered.
It's well-worth reading the introduction by Madeleine Stern which gives a comprehensive mini-biography to accompany the journals.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Almost Every Page Held Some New Amazement, April 17, 2008

By 

Notnadia (Currently upstairs.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Journals of Louisa May Alcott (Paperback)

The eloquent Miss Alcott, creator of Little Women, of course, was not only an interesting diarist, she was one capable of leaving open a portal into her era, her mind, her remarkable human spirit. Her unrehearsed honesty year after year reflects the values of her age moreso than nearly anything else I've read, and the beauty of her entries and thoughts reinforces the fact that our language today is but a pale shadow of the elegant means of expression that existed in America of the nineteenth-century. Alcott scholars should find much to pore through here, but even someone such as myself, who read this out of a sense of historical curiosity, will be delighted. In terms of perfection this is a diary that ranks up there with that of Mary Chesnut, John Evelyn, Samuel Pepys, and very few others.