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Louisa May Alcott Unmasked: Collected Thrillers
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One of America's most adored juvenile fiction writers, Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) also penned anonymous and pseudonymous sensation stories for popular magazines. Her spellbinding tales of intrigue and suspense, violence and evil, jealousy and revenge, were uncovered by the detective work of Madeleine Stern and others, who scrutinized published and unpublished sources for clues to Alcott's secret literary life.
Now Alcott's known thrillers are available for the first time in a single volume. Originally published between 1863 and 1870, these twenty-nine tales illuminate Alcott's versatility as a writer and her storytelling talents. The sensation stories, which feature a succession of powerful and passionate heroines, also reveal Alcott's feminist convictions.
Alcott wrote for various magazines geared toward different groups of readers, and her works were tailored to conform to the standards and perceived interests of each audience. Serials carried by Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, with its mass readership, were sensational shockers that contained violent themes of narcotics addiction and brutal murder, while the stories for Frank Leslie's Lady's Magazine required genteel overtones and less violent plots. The toned-down sensationalism, however, did not preclude feminist heroines, or the titillation of sexual exchanges and the excitement of sexual power struggles.
All the tales in Louisa May Alcott Unmasked are engaging potboilers with vivid characters, exotic backdrops, and complex plots that will beguile today's readers.
Now Alcott's known thrillers are available for the first time in a single volume. Originally published between 1863 and 1870, these twenty-nine tales illuminate Alcott's versatility as a writer and her storytelling talents. The sensation stories, which feature a succession of powerful and passionate heroines, also reveal Alcott's feminist convictions.
Alcott wrote for various magazines geared toward different groups of readers, and her works were tailored to conform to the standards and perceived interests of each audience. Serials carried by Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, with its mass readership, were sensational shockers that contained violent themes of narcotics addiction and brutal murder, while the stories for Frank Leslie's Lady's Magazine required genteel overtones and less violent plots. The toned-down sensationalism, however, did not preclude feminist heroines, or the titillation of sexual exchanges and the excitement of sexual power struggles.
All the tales in Louisa May Alcott Unmasked are engaging potboilers with vivid characters, exotic backdrops, and complex plots that will beguile today's readers.
780 pages, Paperback
First published April 20,1995
This edition
- Format
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780 pages, Paperback
- Published
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April 20, 1995 by Northeastern University Press
- ISBN
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9781555532260
- ASIN
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1555532268
- Language
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English
About the author
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Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet best known for writing the novel Little Women (1868) and its sequels Good Wives (1869), Little Men (1871) and Jo's Boys (1886). Raised in New England by her transcendentalist parents, Abigail May Alcott and Amos Bronson Alcott, she grew up among many well-known intellectuals of the day, including Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Alcott's family suffered from financial difficulties, and while she worked to help support the family from an early age, she also sought an outlet in writing. She began to receive critical success for her writing in the 1860s. Early in her career, she sometimes used pen names such as A.M. Barnard, under which she wrote lurid short stories and sensation novels for adults that focused on passion and revenge.
Published in 1868, Little Women is set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts, and is loosely based on Alcott's childhood experiences with her three sisters, Abigail May Alcott Nieriker, Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, and Anna Bronson Alcott Pratt. The novel was well-received at the time and is still popular today among both children and adults. It has been adapted for stage plays, films, and television many times.
Alcott was an abolitionist and a feminist and remained unmarried throughout her life. She also spent her life active in reform movements such as temperance and women's suffrage. She died from a stroke in Boston on March 6, 1888, just two days after her father's death.
Alcott's family suffered from financial difficulties, and while she worked to help support the family from an early age, she also sought an outlet in writing. She began to receive critical success for her writing in the 1860s. Early in her career, she sometimes used pen names such as A.M. Barnard, under which she wrote lurid short stories and sensation novels for adults that focused on passion and revenge.
Published in 1868, Little Women is set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts, and is loosely based on Alcott's childhood experiences with her three sisters, Abigail May Alcott Nieriker, Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, and Anna Bronson Alcott Pratt. The novel was well-received at the time and is still popular today among both children and adults. It has been adapted for stage plays, films, and television many times.
Alcott was an abolitionist and a feminist and remained unmarried throughout her life. She also spent her life active in reform movements such as temperance and women's suffrage. She died from a stroke in Boston on March 6, 1888, just two days after her father's death.
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