A friend recently sent me a newspaper article about Louisa May Alcott, the author of ‘Little Women.’ I would have been interested anyway but more particularly now as I have just visited Concord, half an hour outside Boston, Massachusetts. LMA was the purpose of the visit. I wanted to go to Orchard House which is where she lived and is now an excellent small museum dedicated to her life and writing.
The article was written on the premise that to be known as a writer of children’s books would inevitably limit the reputation of the author to be considered serious, intellectual and indeed capable of producing anything other than stories for children. So was Louisa May, in effect, kept down by the success of Little Women?
She has written many essays of which I knew nothing (a book containing them is on my Christmas list!) and her writing is deemed to be acerbic, well researched and deserving of being placed beside that of Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen and George Eliot. Gracious, definite aristocrats of the writing world. Fascinating, and giving me lots more to explore.
A Strange Life: Selected Essays of Louisa May Alcott, edited by Liz Rosenberg.
(Notting Hill Editions)