[In the following excerpt, Shealy views Alcott as "a pioneer in American fantasy literature. "]

On Christmas Day 1854, Louisa May Alcott presented her mother, Abigail, with a copy of her first book, Flower Fables, a collection of six fairy tales. Along with the volume, she included a brief letter telling her mother that into "your Christmas stocking I have put my 'first-born,' knowing that you will accept it with all its faults (for grandmothers are always kind), and look upon it merely as an earnest of what I may yet do, for, with so much to cheer me on, I hope to pass in time from fairies and fables to men and realities." Alcott would indeed go on to write of "men and realities." In less than ten years, her experiences as a Civil War nurse would be chronicled in Hospital Sketches (1863), and in 1868 she would publish her greatest success, Little Women, a landmark in children's literature and an American classic. In the following two decades, she would write many domestic novels, ensuring herself a prominent niche in the American tradition of realistic fiction, especially fiction for juveniles. Despite the enormous fame and fortune that such fiction brought to Alcott, she never left behind the fairies and fables of her younger days. Throughout her career, she continued writing fairy tales and fantasy stories, never forgetting the influence of the imagination upon impressionable readers' minds. Even with the creative output of some thirty-eight fantasy tales, this aspect of Alcott's career has largely been ignored by both the reading public and the literary scholars. More attention has been devoted to her Little Women series and her other domestic stories, and more recently to her newly discovered sensational works, or "blood-and-thunder" tales, than to her large body of fantasy literature. . . .

With the publication of Flower Fables in 1854, Alcott established herself as a pioneer in American fantasy fiction. Before the 1850s, American children had few works of American fantasy to read. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Puritans had condemned fiction as being nothing but "lies." Children could find little exercise for the imagination in such popular American works as The New England Primer or John Cotton's Spiritual Milk for Babes or even in such British works as James Janeway's A Token for Children or John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress—unless they were to imagine the blazing fires of hell or the soul's arduous journey to salvation. After 1820, as Anne Scott MacLeod has pointed out, "American preoccupation with the future of the republic and with the children who would shape that future was reflected in a greatly increased production in the United States of all forms of literature for children." For the child's imagination, unfortunately, most of these works were either overtly didactic tales or informative books of science, geography, or history. The most popular of these types were Samuel Goodrich's Peter Parley books, works that tended to be nothing but travelogues or history lessons (often with reading quizzes at the bottom of each page), or Jacob Abbott's Rollo books, which chronicled the ongoing adventures of young Rollo, a paragon of virtue. What little fantasy literature that managed to find its way into children's hands was more than often of European origin. . . .

Without a doubt, many of these European works, including Mother Goose, Grimms' tales, and Andersen's stories, found their way into the libraries of American children and were great favorites. However, America too was soon to create its own literary folktales. The history of fantasy in American literature is filled with popular misconceptions. If one were to ask a friend to name the earliest fantasy work in America, most people would be hard-pressed to name anything before L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900). But an enormous and wonderful outpouring of fairy tales, fables, and fantasies appeared during the nineteenth century, especially from the 1850s onward. As Mark West notes in Before Oz, fables began appearing in the United States around the middle of the eighteenth century, most of which were English reprints. However, in 1836, Samuel Goodrich published Parley's Book of Fables, a work that placed heavy emphasis on morals. Praising literature that was informative and educational, Goodrich, on the whole, disliked the traditional tales of Perrault and the Brothers Grimm:

Somewhat later [after the age of ten] one of my companions lent me a volume containing the stories of Little Red Riding Hood, Puss in Boots, Blue Beard, Jack the Giant-killer, and some other of the tales of horror, commonly put into the hands of youth, as if for the express purpose of reconciling them to vice and crime. Some children, no doubt, have a ready appetite for these monstrosities, but to others they are revolting, until by repetition and familiarity, the taste is sufficiently degraded to relish them. At all events, they were shocking to me. . . . That such tales should be invented and circulated in a barbarous age, I can easily conceive. . . . But that they should be put into the hands of children, and by Christian parents, and that too in an age of light and refinement—excites in me the utmost wonder.

Goodrich's attitude, as Brian Attebery notes in The Fantasy Tradition in America, was the typical American view point on fairy tales during the first half of the nineteenth century.

Besides Parley's Fables, other early nineteenth-century fantasy was also published in America. In 1848, C. B. Burkhardt published Fairy Tales and Legends of Many Nations, which was largely retellings of European stories. That same year, Lydia Maria Child, who wrote many didactic household works, edited Rainbows for Children. Child's work, though allegorical at times, was also didactic, as evidenced by her own introduction to the volume: "Thus does the spirit of hopeful progress diffuse itself through all departments of literature, and even the fairy-wand points to a happier state of society."

Despite these early collections of fables and fairy tales, most scholars agree that Nathaniel Hawthorne's A Wonder Book (1851) and Tanglewood Tales (1853) began the tradition of the literary fairy tale in America. Both books were new versions of the ancient Greek myths, specifically reworked with a children's audience in mind. Eustace Bright, a young college student, narrates the tales, thus serving as a framing device for all the stories. The same year that Tanglewood Tales appeared, a friend and admirer of Hawthorne, Richard Henry Stoddard, wrote Adventures in Fairy-Land. In fact, Stoddard paid tribute to A Wonder Book in the preface to his own book, and he adopted Hawthorne's device of using a narrator to frame his works. A year later, in 1854, Louisa May Alcott would publish Flower Fables.

With a European tradition firmly established and an American tradition in fantasy literature beginning to form by the 1850s, where does Alcott's work fit into the tradition? Without question, Alcott's fantasy fiction belongs to the long tradition of the moral tale in America, a tradition well established by the Puritans and carried into the nineteenth century by Samuel Goodrich, Jacob Abbott, and Lydia Maria Child. The aim of most children's literature of the early nineteenth century was exemplified in the appearance, in 1827, of a major, children's periodical. Established by Nathaniel Willis, The Youth's Companion outlined its goal to be "a small weekly journal which should entertain . . . children and insensibly instruct them; which should occupy leisure hours, and turn them to good account; which should sanction and aid parental counsel and pulpit admonition; which should, in any easy and familiar manner, warn against the ways of transgression, error and ruin, and allure to those of virtue and piety." Born in 1832, Alcott was a product of the age of moral fiction. She grew up reading didactic literature, and since it dominated the literary marketplace for most of her life, it was the type fiction she wrote. In fact, she even admitted that one of her favorite authors was Maria Edgeworth, England's most prolific writer of didactic stories and novels. This fact, coupled with Alcott's own education by her transcendentalist father, Bronson Alcott, whose teachings stressed a strong moral fiber, influenced her own writing throughout her career, including her fantasy tales.

Alcott's fantasy stories can be placed in the didactic tradition of fantasy literature. Certainly the fables of Aesop and many of the Grimms' tales contain implicit or explicit lessons or morals. Even Charles Perrault's tales had morals attached to them at their conclusion. In his study of the fairy tale in England, Michael Kotzin notes that many Victorian writers who championed fairy tales pointed out the moral values in such stories. For example, while extolling the imaginative virtue of such tales, Thomas Carlyle also stressed their moral qualities. John Ruskin's The King of the Golden River (1841), Charles Dickens's The Magic Fishbone (1868), and Charles Kingsley's Water Babies (1863) all contain rather explicit morals. In America, the moral tradition in fantasy literature was established early in the nineteenth century with Parley's Book of Fables. In his preface to his work, Goodrich writes: "I am well aware that conscientious scruples are entertained by many wise and good people as to the use of fiction in juvenile books, but it appears to me that the argument commonly lies against the abuse and not against the use of fiction." As already noted, Lydia Maria Child was part of this tradition. In 1844, Child published the first volume of Flowers for Children, which contains the short story "The Indolent Fairy," a tale similar to most of Alcott's fantasy tales, especially those of her early career. In Child's story, Papillon, a fairy "remarkable for her impatience and indolence," is ordered by the fairy queen to "go to a cavern in Ceylon, and there remain until she had fashioned a purer and more brilliant diamond than had ever rested on the brow of mortal or fairy." Falling asleep and dreaming of a hummingbird, which builds its nest with hard work without ever thinking of the time it takes to accomplish the task, Papillon begins to believe that honest work brings good results. Eventually, she learns that everyone appears "to be happy at their work; perhaps I can learn to be so." The use of nature and the emphasis on reform clearly parallel Alcott's own work. In fact, it is quite possible that Alcott herself had read this tale since her journal indicates her familiarity with Child's work and since Abigail Alcott, Louisa's mother, was a good friend of Child's.

While Alcott's fantasy works had their didactic predecessors, they also influenced later writers, including Elizabeth Foster Wesselhoeft, wife of Alcott's longtime physician, Conrad Wesselhoeft. Writing under the name Lily F. Wesselhoeft, she would publish several fantasy books, such as The Winds, the Woods, and the Wanderer (1890) and The Fairy-Folk of Blue Hill (1895), but her didactic fantasy work Sparrow, the Tramp (1888), published the year of Alcott's death, acknowledges Alcott's influence upon her work: "The lamented author of 'Little Women' in her last days read with great delight the manuscript of this little story; and its publication is owing greatly to the interest which she had in it." Thus, when Alcott's first collection of fantasy stories appeared in late 1854, her work was firmly in the moral tradition of American fiction, and it helped give shape to the didactic emphasis in the tradition of fantasy literature.

Alcott proudly noted the publication of her first book in her journal entry for 1 January 1855: "The principal event of the winter is the appearance of my book 'Flower Fables.' An edition of sixteen hundred. It has sold well and people seem to like it. I feel quite proud that the little tales that I wrote for Ellen E. when I was sixteen should now bring money and fame. . . . Miss Wealthy Stevens paid for the book, and I received $32." Published by George W. Briggs of Boston in mid-December 1854 (although the book carries an 1855 copyright, the exact publication date was 19 December 1854), Flower Fables has a fascinating history.

In 1848, at the age of sixteen, Louisa Alcott taught neighborhood children, including Ralph Waldo Emerson's second child, Ellen, in the family's Hillside barn in Concord. Ellen Emerson was her audience as Alcott entertained the child with stories of a beautiful nature fairyland. Influenced by her woodland walks with her friend and neighbor Henry David Thoreau, her visits to his cabin at Waiden Pond, and her readings in books such as The Story Without an End, Alcott fashioned a fairy world of her own. Later in life, Alcott recalled those teenage days in Concord, noting the imaginative quality of those times: "Those Concord days were the happiest of my life, for we had charming playmates in the little Emersons, Channings, Hawthornes.. .. Little pilgrims journeyed over the hills with scrip and staff, and cockle-shells in their hats; elves held their pretty revels among the pines, and 'Peter Wilkins' flying ladies came swinging down on the birch tree-tops. Lords and ladies haunted the garden and mermaids splashed in the bath-house of woven willows over the brook." Under this imaginative magical spell of a nature fairyland, the young Louisa wrote down those tales she told and presented nine-year-old Ellen with two handmade books: "The Frost King," written in a green notebook, and "The Fairy Dell," a manuscript covered with gray marbled paper and bound together with pink ribbon.

By 1854, Alcott had made plans to publish her tales, already having written at least three stories and several poems for such periodicals as the Saturday Evening Gazette and Dodge's Literary Museum. In a letter to her older sister, Anna, penned during the summer of 1854, Alcott noted her disappointment that the tales had not already appeared; she had, she confessed "shed my quart [of tears] . . . over the book not coming out; for that was a sad blow and I waited so long it was dreadful when my castle in the air came tumbling about my ears. Pride made me laugh in public; but I wailed in private." In November, however, arrangements were obviously secured for the publication since Bronson Alcott recorded in his journal for 17 November 1854 that he had discussed the volume with the publisher: "Today see Briggs, the publisher concerning Louisa's book Flower Fables which she is printing as a child's Christmas gift." Madeleine Stern suggests that Emerson himself may have been of help in securing Briggs as he had known the Reverend George Ware Briggs of Rhode Island, a relative of the publisher. In her journal, Alcott also explains that Miss Wealthy Stevens paid for the book. It was Miss Stevens for whom Louisa had done sewing in 1852, when the Alcotts lived at 10 Pinckney Street in Boston, and she was probably the sister of William B. Stevens, who worked for a time in the Boston Globe Bank. In fact, the book's copyright notice is in William B. Stevens's name. So with the help of friends and family, Alcott saw her "first-born" to press.

Not forgetting the role young Ellen Emerson played in the book's history, Alcott dedicated the volume to her and sent her a copy of the work, along with a short letter in December 1854: "Hoping that age has not lessened your love for the Fairy folk I have ventured to place your name in my little book, for your interest in their sayings & doings, first called forth these 'Flower Fables,' most of which were fancied long ago in Concord woods & fields." Expressing her dissatisfaction with the illustrations for the volume, Alcott complained to Ellen: "The pictures are not what I hoped they would be & it is very evident that the designer is not as well acquainted with fairy forms & faces as you & I are, so we must each imagine to suit ourselves & I hope if the fairies tell me any more stories, they will let an Elfin artist illustrate them." Ellen Emerson was, of course, flattered by such attention, and her reaction to the book was given to a friend in a letter on 21 December 1854:

A very dignified young woman addresses you, a girl who this morning received a book dedicated to her. Do you understand? I am anxious that you should feel a sufficient respect for me now that I have got a book dedicated to me. It is Louisa Alcott's Flower Fables. When the Alcotts lived here Louisa used to read her stories to me and I used to go wild about them, and made her write them for me. She says that 'twas I who made her publish them for I showed the written ones to Mother who liked them so much she advised Louisa to print a book. Then they were showed to some more and everyone was pleased with them. So this morning I saw a bundle on the entry table directed to me. I opened it and found the Flower Fables all bound and printed very nicely with pictures, but on turning it over I saw my name in large letters and discovered that 'twas dedicated to me! Of course I fell down in a swoon since I could not express my emotion, there being nobody in the house, and read it and looked at it from every point of view.

Was the public's reaction to the book as enthusiastic as Ellen Emerson's? George Briggs advertised the book in the 19 December 1854 Boston Evening Transcript as "the most beautiful Fairy book that has appeared for a long time, written when in her sixteenth year, by Louisa May Alcott, a young lady of Boston. It will be the most popular juvenile issued this season." On 23 December, the Saturday Evening Gazette, for whom Alcott was beginning to contribute stories, reviewed the book: "Very sweet are these little legends of Fairy land, which those of our young friends, who are so fond of tales of enchantment, will, we are sure, peruse with avidity. The interest which children take in fairy tales is well known, and the infant mind is more susceptible to truths under such a guise, than in more direct tales of a moral character."

It is indeed under the "guise" of enchantment that Alcott imparts her lessons in morality for young people. In this collection of six stories and three poems, Alcott creates a fairyland where the examples of love, kindness, and duty are imparted. The stories are linked by the use of fairy narrators. In the framework preceding the first selection, the Queen of the Fairies and her Maids of Honor, "far away from mortal eyes," wait for the summer moon to go down. They '"wile away the time'" by agreeing to "'tell a tale, or relate what we have done or learned this day.'" Each fairy, in turn, spins stories or recites poems.

In the first tale, "The Frost-King; or, The Power of Love," the Queen of the Fairies has long struggled to keep the cruel Frost-King from killing the flowers. After many attempts with "courtly words" and "rich gifts," the Queen is at a loss as to how to convince the cold heart of the Frost-King to have mercy on the flowers. In typical fairytale fashion, the weakest, Violet, agrees to undertake the challenge. While the king at first refuses, he finally agrees to make a deal with Violet. He promises never to harm the flowers of her kingdom if she will only '"go back to your own people and leave me and my Spirits to work our will on all the other flowers that bloom.'" Showing her great capacity for love, Violet refuses to let others die while those in her kingdom survive. Like many fairy-tale protagonists she is then given a difficult task to overcome: build a palace fairer than the king's icy one. Winning the love of the Frost-Spirits by speaking gentle words and teaching them "how beautiful love is," Violet finally makes the Frost-King choose: accept the flower crown of love or send '"forth your Spirits to carry sorrow and desolation over the happy earth, and win for yourself the fear and hatred of those who would so gladly love and reverence you.'" The king, realizing, his mistakes, accepts the crown of flowers, proclaiming that Violet "'has taught us that Love is mightier than fear.'"

Similar lessons of love are told in the other five tales. In "Eva's Visit to Fairy Land," little Eva is taken by fairies to their home, where she watches them at work and play, discovering that they are not "idle, wilful Spirits." On her visit, she learns to take all the "sad and discontented feelings from her heart," to let "love and patience blossom there," to show kindness and love to those who are unkind, to comfort the sick and the old, to give tender thoughts to the young and strength to the weak. By visiting fairyland, Eva finds happy "feelings in her heart" and departs "better and wiser." When such lessons are taught by fairies, the author implies, humans can remember them more easily. Love is again the theme in "Lily Bell and Thistledown." Because of the "little thorns of cruelty and selfishness that lay concealed in his gay mantle," Thistledown is unloved in fairyland. His friend, Lily Bell, is on the other hand kind, humble, and compassionate and is loved by all. Caring only for himself, Thistledown time and again causes destruction and even death. Finally, he is caught by the Brownies, who vow to punish him for his cruel deeds. Only by going on a quest alone and obtaining gifts from earth, air, and water spirits will they release him. Eventually, through the acquisition of a loving heart, Thistledown indeed redeems himself.

In "Little Bud," the quest is once more a theme, as Little Bud vows to help restore an outcast band of elves to the kingdom. Queen Dew-drop agrees, but only if the elves '"can bring hither a perfect Fairy crown, robe, and wand.'" This task, she warns, is difficult as '"none but the best and purest can form the Fairy garments.'" Unfortunately, the elves allow Little Bud to do the work, and the Queen refuses to recognize them. Little Bud, however, offers them the chance to "'dwell through the long winter in the dark, cold earth'" to watch over the flowers. She promises no payment and no help. Accomplishing this task by "seeking no reward but the knowledge of their own good deeds," the elves are readmitted to Fairy Land, thus illustrating that, if people perform good deeds out of the kindness of their hearts, they will eventually be commended.

An interesting twist on the theme of love and goodness is presented in "Little Annie's Dream," perhaps the most sophisticated of these stories. Longing to be good and patient, Annie meets a fairy who tells her she must "'learn to conquer many passions that you cherish now.'" Like the protagonist of many fairy tales, Annie is given a magic object: a flower that will produce a sweet fragrance when she has performed her duty well. However, when she is selfish, angry, unkind, or cruel, a flower-bell will sound its warning. Hearing the bell often, Annie decides to abandon trying to be a good girl. Falling asleep, she has an allegorical dream where she confronts the "shapes of Selfishness" and the "Spirits of Pride," which come from her own heart. Symbolically, they cast a shadow all around her; she soon sees a "high, dark wall" enclosing her, attempting "to shut out everything she loved." The spirits then ask her to yield up her own heart for their home, to become their slave. Through the darkness, she glimpses the pale light of the fairy flower. In her dream, the evil spirits tempt her with various ordeals, but, as the flower grows brighter, she overcomes this power. Vines and flowers soon cover the wall and, when they bloom, they break down the structure. Thus, she "worked and hoped" and eventually the evil spirits are replaced by "shining forms." The dream ends with a low voice explaining the significance of the nightmare: "The dark, unlovely passions you have looked upon are in your heart; watch well while they are few and weak, lest they should darken your whole life, and shut out love and happiness for ever.'" Little Annie profits from her dream, "each day growing richer in the love of others, and happier in herself." Alcott is suggesting to her readers that, if they ignore the evil thoughts and bad things that they do, the dark passions will eventually rule. Only love can create a pure heart.

In the final story in Flower Fables, "Ripple the Water Spirit," the quest theme reappears. Here, Ripple, who lives deep in the sea, finds the drowned body of a child. Discovering the dead child's mother, Ripple hears her lament to bring back life to the little one. Ripple seeks out the Fairy Queen, who tells her that only the Fire-Spirits, which are impossible to reach, can help restore life to the child. After seeking assistance from the four seasons, Ripple finally reaches the dwelling of the Fire-Spirits; however, the vain Fire-Queen refuses help until Ripple promises to bring her jewels. When Ripple agrees, the Queen gives her part of the flame. Keeping her promise, Ripple returns and restores life to the child, and the mother rewards her with a string of pearls. Bringing the jewels to the Fire-Spirits, Ripple discovers that they all melt from the heat. Angry, the spirits vow to keep Ripple prisoner, but they finally release her when they discover the wonderful pearls. The quest is complete. Only through the help of others has Ripple been able to keep her vow. By not thinking of herself as she constantly puts her life in danger, Ripple shows the true power of love. It is this power of love that dominates Flower Fables and makes it such a unified book.

In her 1977 psychoanalytic biography, Louisa May, Martha Saxton argues that it is in Flower Fables that "Louisa spelled out her nightmares." Alcott's enemies, Saxton believes, are "her fears of being isolated behind a wall of sins of her own making, and the terrifying nature of some of her impulses, which she had to shut away." She goes on to say that in "each fable, the sinner repents and gains great love, and often a coveted journey home. She is received with great joy and warmth. The self-abasement produces a resolution and peace. Hard, patient, uncomplaining work always wins love. . . . " Claiming that Louisa is "spell[ing] out her nightmare," may be applying the tales too closely to Alcott's own life. Saxton is correct, however, in saying that love does triumph. What Saxton seems to ignore is that these tales were originally told by a teenager to a nine-year-old child, tales that were meant to teach morals or lessons. As MacLeod has correctly explained: "The relentless moralizing of this [nineteenth-century] literature oppresses most twentieth-century adults who read it, and some have assumed that nineteenth-century children must have been equally oppressed." She further argues that these judgments are incorrect; they are "both unhistorical and out of keeping with what we know of children and their moral attitudes." They are "unhistorical" because didacticism in nineteenth-century children's books "was not more omnipresent nor more insistent than that in most fiction . . . for adults; a fervent concern with morality was simply part of the nineteenth-century outlook. . . . And children, particularly, are not put off by strong and simplistic morality in their literature. . . . " Alcott's fables clearly fit into this moral tradition. Her aims were to captivate young minds with an enchanted world and to tell a good story but also to instruct them in helping to create a better self, a better world. Her own upbringing by a transcendentalist educator and her passion for Emerson's essays helped to shape her positive view of the world and to promote the idea that everyone could reform. As Emerson asks in Nature: "who can set bounds to the possibilities of man?" Indeed, the transcendentalists believed that only by reforming the individual, not society as a whole, could the world change. Change the individual and society will eventually change. This is the philosophy Alcott brings to her fiction. What else would one expect from the person who once signed her letters "Yours, for reforms of all kind"?

Educating and reforming children also provide the dominant tone in Alcott's second fantasy book, The Rose Family. In 1863, she published the realistic account of her experiences as a Civil War nurse in Hospital Sketches. Her publisher, James Redpath, was a noted abolitionist, and having had a moderate amount of success with the book, Alcott again turned to Redpath with her long fairy tale The Rose Family. Although the book carries an 1864 copyright, it was actually published in December 1863. In her journal for that month, Alcott notes that she had intended to get the book out in time for the Christmas season, "but owing to delays it was late for the holidays & badly bound in the hurry, so the poor 'Rose Family' fared badly." In her "Notes and Memoranda" for 1864, Alcott lists her royalty on The Rose Family as fifty dollars (Journals). Expressing her dissatisfaction with the publisher in her February 1864 journal entry, Alcott says, "Redpath does not suit me though he does his best I believe."

The Rose Family tells how three fairy sisters—Moss, Brier, and Blush—are sent to the good fairy, Star, to cure their "troublesome faults." Each fairy child, in turn, has a chapter devoted to her adventure in overcoming her burdens. Before their experiences begin, Star gives each a talisman—a drop of water from a magic fountain, in which their mother's face will always appear. Helped by the memory of their loving mother, the three set out on separate journeys of experience. The indolent Moss becomes part of Madam Mouse's family, but she refuses to work and departs the safety of the home. Joining a revel of "nightloving insects and reptiles," she is frightened when an owl swoops down and carries away one of the revelers. As a result of her nightmarish journey, Moss learns that "there is no real pleasure in idleness." Brier, Moss's sister, is a "passionate and wilful" fairy who is placed with a family of birds, where she tempts the fledging Flutter to fly before the proper time. When Flutter falls to the ground, Brier runs away, assuming the bird is dead. On her journey, she witnesses a large black ant kill a red ant out of anger, and she wonders if she herself were any "better than the brutal black ant who had destroyed so much happiness in his blind anger." She too undergoes a nightmarish ordeal as she endures a frightening time in a swamp, where the various flowers whisper to her in the dark, tugging for her soul. Returning to the bird's nest, she has learned her lesson, only needing "to be shown how sad and unlovely her own fault looked in others, to grow glad and eager to be good."

The final chapter revolves around Blush, whose burden is vanity. In many ways this tale recalls Meg's ordeal in Little Women, especially in the chapter "Meg at Vanity Fair," where, upon the advice of others, she over-dresses so much that Laurie is disappointed in her. Here, Blush is left in a beautiful garden, where she spends her days "arranging gay garments, looking in her glasses, and flying about to be admired by the flowers." Taking the cruel advice of the tulips, who dislike her, Blush bathes in the poisonous dew of a nightshade plant, which turns her face colorless and fades her hair. Attempting suicide (the only such attempt in Alcott's fantasy tales), she plunges into a stream, but the waves divide, and she sinks slowly to the bottom, where a water-spirit lives. The spirit gives the vain fairy important advice: "'Live for others, Blush; forget yourself, and care for the beauty of a simple earnest heart more than for loveliness of face or grace of form.'" Of course, Blush follows the advice, and in the book's conclusion all three fairies are back home, reunited with the mother, whose thoughts and love protected them by their talisman. All of these tales could have been included in Flower Fables as once again the power of love is demonstrated. With a specific burden to cure, each fairy finds that it is only in helping and loving others that true happiness can be discovered.

Alcott's third collection of fairy tales appeared in late 1867, published by Horace B. Fuller of Boston. In her June 1867 journal she wrote that Fuller wanted a book, and by August she had completed it. Noting that the book was out, she said in her December 1867 journal entry: "People liked it but Fuller did not make it go well for want of money." Morning Glories, and Other Stories contained eight new tales, four poems, and a reprint of The Rose Family. Six of the eight tales were fantasy stories, most in same didactic vein as her earlier works.

"Shadow-Children," a unique tale in the volume, focuses on how shadows become the alter egos or consciences of several children. On mid-summer day, a time of magic in fairy lore, Polly asks, "'Wouldn't it be fun to see shadows going about alone and doing things like people?'" The children's shadows then spring to life. Instead of cutting "capers" as little Ned had hoped, the shadows serve as models to the children, illustrating the proper behavior. Ned's, for instance, immediately begins to pick the peas, which Ned's mother had requested him to do. When Ned asks why the shadow is performing the job, it conveys to Ned the idea that Ned's mother does much for him so he should do what he can for her. Each shadow in turn helps the children see that being good, helping others, and doing one's duty is important. As the day ends and the children discuss the magical event, they see the shadow-mother appear on the wall, singing and watching over her shadow-children. Like the sisters' talisman in The Rose Family, the mother is once again the abiding force of love. Alcott, in "The Shadow-Children," stresses the importance of our "other" selves, our inner selves that tell us how we should behave, implying that we should indeed listen to these voices.

Another tale of proper behavior is "What the Swallows Did." Here, a poet mourns the loss of his wife and child, and even though he has money, friends, and the gift of writing, he cannot be comforted: "He took no notice of friends and neighbors; neither used his money for himself nor others; found no beauty in the world, no happiness anywhere." Yearning to be free of cares like the swallows he sees, the man has essentially given up life. When the swallows hear the man's wishes, they voice their disapproval: "'If I were that man, I'd make myself useful at once.'" The birds then discuss how the man can lead a "useful" life, and after overhearing their conversation, the poet takes their advice. Using his money and his talent, he helps the poor, the sick, and the old. He becomes a changed person: "Sunshine and peace seem to reign . . . and the happiness he earned for himself, by giving it to others, flowed out in beautiful, blithe songs . . . making him friends, and bringing him honor in high places as well as low." By losing one's self, one finds one's self, Alcott reminds the reader. If people focus attention upon others, especially those in need, they forget their own troubles.

"Little Gulliver" also teaches about helping others. In the story, Davey, whose closest friend is his pet sea gull, Gulliver, lives with the lighthouse keeper, Old Dan. When Dan fails to return from town one day, Gulliver sets out to find him. However, the gull, driven by strong winds, crashes into a boat's sail and is captured by a small girl. Placed in a cage, Gulliver is finally befriended by a poor, black servant named Moppet, who promises to set the bird free: "'I don't want no tanks, birdie: I love to let you go, kase you's a slave, like I once was.'" Disheartened Moppet also reveals that '"Nobody in de world keres for me. . . . De oder chilen has folks to lub an kere for em, but Moppet's got no friends.'" As the black girl watches over Gulliver while he regains his strength to fly, she discovers Dan, whose boat had been run down by a ship in the fog. After recovering, Dan takes Moppet back to his lighthouse: "He did not mind the black skin: he only saw the loneliness of the child, the tender heart, the innocent white soul." Thus, the story ends with Dan, Davey, and Gulliver reunited and Moppet secure in the love of a family. Using several intertwining themes here, the story explores the importance of helping others in need, being independent, like Davey has to be when old Dan disappears, and overcoming prejudice, as shown when Dan adopts Moppet. In fact, this is the only Alcott fantasy story dealing with prejudice, a theme that appears in several of her adult stories.

Two other tales in Morning Glories also impart morals. "The Whale's Story" recounts how a proud, foolish whale turns himself into an island and is eventually killed, illustrating the Biblical idea that "pride goeth before a fall." The other didactic story, one of the more sophisticated in the book, "Fancy's Friend," is an allegory about faith and the imagination in which the characters Fact, Fiction, and Fancy struggle for dominance. In the story, Fancy visits the seashore in hopes of seeing a mermaid. When her sand drawing of a mermaid comes to life, young Fancy is delighted and begs Lorelei, as the mermaid calls herself, to follow her home. Lorelei agrees, but only on certain conditions: '"If you will promise to tell no one who and what I am, I will stay with you as long as you love and believe in me. As soon as you betray me, or lose your faith and fondness, I shall vanish. . . . '" Fancy, of course, agrees and takes the mermaid home to visit her Aunt Fiction and Uncle Fact. The ensuing struggle of whether Lorelei should stay pits the allegorical Fact, Fiction, and Fancy against each other. Fancy and Fiction want her to remain. Uncle Fact, however, insists upon reality: "'I've told my wife a dozen times that she lets Fancy read too many fairy tales and wonder-books. Her head is full of nonsense, and she is just ready to believe any ridiculous story that is told her.'" In the end, Fact wins out; however, it is not without a sense of loss for Fancy. One can clearly see how Alcott was torn here, realizing the importance of the imagination in one's life, yet also insisting upon the more practical reality.

The remaining tale, "A Strange Island," is unlike any of Alcott's previous tales. Here, no moral comes through the enchantment; instead, the emphasis is solely on the imagination. Told in the guise of a dream, a common device in Alcott's later fairy tales, the story recounts the adventures of the narrator, who finds herself on an island inhabited by characters from Mother Goose rhymes: Little Bo Peep, Little Miss Muffit, the five little piggies, Jack Sprat, old Mother Hubbard. In the end, Mother Goose, with her pointed hat, red cloak, and high-heeled shoes, arrives flying on a large goose. As she touches the ground, she is surrounded by hundreds of children, '"phantoms of all the little people who ever read and loved'" the rhymes. One can see from this tale, written in 1867, how popular Mother Goose had become in America. For a brief time, the children can forget the didactic lessons and immerse themselves in pure fantasy, a rarity in Alcott's fiction.

After the appearance of Morning-Glories in late 1867, four years would lapse before Alcott would print any of her fantasy works in books. But those four years were among the most important in her life. In September 1867, she recorded the following events in her journal: "Niles, partner of Roberts, asked me to write a girls [sic] book. Said I'd try. Fuller asked me to be the editor of 'Merry's Museum.' Said I'd try. Began at once on both new jobs, but didn't like either." Though she claims to have been dissatisfied with both jobs, Alcott probably chuckled over this entry a year or two later since the latter task provided her with valuable experience and the first one changed her professional and personal life forever.

In October 1867, Horace B. Fuller, publisher of Morning-Glories, purchased Merry's Museum, one of the country's oldest children's periodicals, which had been established in 1841 by Samuel Goodrich. Agreeing to become editor for five hundred dollars a year, Alcott gained the knowledge of how a children's periodical worked, information which would certainly help her as she contributed to The Youth's Companion, St. Nicholas, and Harper's Young People in the last two decades of her career. Her output for Merry's Museum was enormous. From 1868 to 1871, she contributed nearly thirty poems and stories to the magazine, plus writing the column "Merry's Monthly Chat." In fact, in her debut issue, January 1868, Alcott wrote an episode that would appear a few months later in another book: the story of how four sisters give their Christmas breakfast to a needy family. The first task she had agreed to do in September 1867—to write a "girls book"—would result in Little Women, published in the fall of 1868. After that, there was no turning back. During the years 1868-71, Alcott, besides writing for Merry's Museum, would publish Little Women and An Old-Fashioned Girl and begin Little Men. With Little Women so profitable, she could not refuse to write the domestic tales the public loved. Fantasy literature would have to take a back seat in her career.

In 1871, Alcott and her publisher concocted a plan to capitalize on her newfound fame: to issue a series of short stories entitled Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag. This venture would allow Alcott to make money while her literary flame was as its brightest. Not only would the series publish new tales, which she continued to write for various periodicals, but it would also provide her with an outlet to reuse her old tales. The title, of course, would take advantage of the popularity of Jo March, although Aunt Jo does not serve as a frame narrator. In her excellent study of the Scrap-Bag stories, Joy A. Marsella speculates on the choice of the title for the series, noting that it is one of "self-assurance and deference": "It is an act of self-assurance because Alcott (and Niles) were confident enough of her place as a major author of juvenile fiction that they were certain that short, irregular, oddshaped 'scraps' of her writing would sell. . . . But there is a suggestion of apology too; Alcott surely knew they were not among her major works." The Scrap-Bag series did allow Alcott a chance to demonstrate that she could write in other genres besides the domestic tales, and it gave her the place to publish her fantasy fiction once again.

Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag: My Boys, the first volume of the series, was published in January 1872. To demonstrate the enormous popularity of Alcott at this time one only has to look at the initial number of volumes printed: fifteen thousand copies. My Boys contained only two fantasy stories, both reprints of earlier tales. "Madam Cluck, and Her Family," originally published in the August 1869 Merry's Museum, is one of Alcott's most gruesome fantasy tales, with all the major characters meeting their death in violent ways. Each death is caused by the characters performing some act that points out their flaw. For example, Chanty, a bold rooster who loves to fight, meets his match and dies in a bloody battle, and Peep, who loves to eat, gobbles up too much salt, not knowing it is bad for chickens. Only little Blot's death brings real sympathy. Blot, who had been neglected by all the other chickens, is the most well behaved and affectionate of Mrs. Cluck's brood. Showing a lost kitten the way home, Blot does not return to the hen house in time and freezes to death before its door. Once again, Alcott is teaching children that if they do not overcome their faults, such as vanity, gluttony, pride, willfulness, and disobedience, they may suffer tragic consequences in their life because of them.

The second fantasy story in the collection, "A Curious Call," reprinted from the February 1869 Merry's Museum, is the more interesting of the two. The narrator, in what turns out to be a dream, is surprised one night by a visit from the gilted golden eagle from the Boston City Hall. The eagle then tells her about the fun that all the statues in Boston have as they come to life at night. Ending by giving the narrator some literary advice, the eagle points out subjects she should write about: "'Write some stories for the children; go and help teach them; do something, and make others do what they can to increase the Sabbath sunshine that brightens one day in the week for the poor babies who live in shady places. .. . People are so wrapped up in their own affairs they don't do half they might.'" Noting that the bird declares himself "a gentleman," Marsella argues that the eagle symbolizes the gentry values of the cultural elite and "suggests behavior that will be effective in maintaining the strength of the country. The gentlemen's behavior is highly moral and is apparently instinctive to those who possess good intentions, education, concern for others, and awareness of public issues." Like many of her other fantasy works, "A Curious Call" stresses reform, the betterment of the individual and of society.

More fantasy stories followed in Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag. Cupid and Chow-Chow, the third volume of the series, appeared in December 1873—in time for the holiday season. Four fantasy tales were included, along with more realistic work. Although never used, "Fairy Pinafores," had been written since January 1864, when Alcott noted in her journal that she had completed the manuscript. Helping the poverty-stricken and the homeless is again the theme as Cinderella's fairy godmother gathers one hundred poor children and takes them to the country, where the children sew magic pinafores. Whoever wears them will grow gentle and good. Selected from among all the children, Little Barbara takes the magical garments to the city, where she sells them out of Little Red Riding Hood's basket. Before buying the clothes, the children must kiss the penny with a kind word and friendly wish. Once Barbara has sold all the pinafores, she puts the pennies into a circle, where they sprout wings and fly away. All the rich parents and their children follow them to the fairy godmother's home; there they are so moved by the poor children that they give money to support them. Once the king hears of the magic pinafores, he too visits and feels charitable. As the story concludes, the fairy godmother tells him to '"go and make homes for all your poor. . . . '" Charity to the poor is often a theme in Alcott's fantasy stories, and it is usually the eyes and deeds of the children that open up adult hearts.

Other tales also teach lessons. While "The Moss People" is a didactic tale of how Marnie learns to be good by watching the little people in her terrarium come alive, "A Marine Merry-Making," originally included in the October 1869 Merry's Museum, is a satire on high society parties. The other more interesting piece is "What Fanny Heard," reprinted from the 13 May 1867 Youth's Compariion. When Fanny complains of being bored, the objects in the house come alive, telling her of all the wonderful things she could do: play the piano, sing, sew, read. Finally, the fire spirit informs her that the house once had a child who did all those things—Fanny's mother. With the portrait of her mother looking down upon her, Fanny vows to be like her and grow into a "useful, cheerful, good woman." As in other previous tales, and in Little Women, the mother is the figure that gives inspiration and serves as a role model for proper behavior and a satisfying life.

In the remaining Scrap-Bag books, only four new fantasy stories appear. In volume four, My Girls (1877), "Autobiography of an Omnibus," which had originally appeared in the October 1874 St. Nicholas, recounts the various jobs of the omnibus, none more important than sheltering a homeless family. Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore (1879), the fifth volume in the series, includes two tales: "What Becomes of the Pins," and "Rosa's Tale." In the former, the reader learns—as the pins come alive to tell their life histories—that people, like the pins, "shape their own lives," again emphasizing how people can influence their own futures by hard work and good behavior. The latter story is narrated by Rosa, a former racehorse, who speaks "English and the peculiar dialect of the horse-country Gulliver visited." After hearing Rosa's life story, told on the night of Christmas Eve, the time when legend has it that animals can speak, her owner vows to love her forever. This talking beast tale once again expresses the idea that we all need love. Appearing in An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, published in 1882 as the sixth and last volume of the Scrap-Bag series, "The Dolls' Journey" is written for pure entertainment as it relates the adventures two dolls have as they are shipped from Minnesota to Maine. An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving also reprints seven of the fantasy tales from Morning-Glories, thus making these tales available to the large audience of readers who started enjoying Alcott after Little Women. While fantasy literature does not dominate the Scrap-Bag series, it does indicate that Alcott still found it important to imbed her morals in enchantment.

Fantasy, however, does dominate two volumes of Alcott's next short story series: Lulu's Library. The idea for such a collection came as early as 1883, when Louisa wrote her editor Thomas Niles on 23 June: "Mrs. [Mary Mapes] Dodge begged me to consider myself mortgaged to her for tales, etc., and as I see no prospect of any time for writing books, I may be able to send her some short stories . . . and so be getting material for a new set of books like "Scrap-bag," but with a new name. By the early 1880s two events had occurred that had a great impact on Alcott's career. First, her health was failing and she was unable to work for long periods of time, thus forcing her to write short stories rather than a novel, which would consume more of her energy. Second, her sister May Alcott Nieriker had died in late 1879, leaving Louisa the custody of her newborn daughter, Louisa May Neiriker, nicknamed "Lulu." These events forced Louisa to slow down her writing, to take more time to nurse her health and to raise Lulu. On 13 July 1885, Alcott again wrote Niles: "I want to know if it is too late to do it and if it is worth doing; namely to collect some of the little tales I tell Lulu and put them with the two I shall have printed the last year . . . and call it 'Lulu's Library'? I have several tiny books written down for L.; and as I can do no great work, it occurred to me that I might venture to copy these if it would do for a Christmas book for the younger set." The idea worked, of course, because it kept Alcott's name, still a popular one, before her reading public, and it allowed her to reuse stories she was writing for such magazines as St. Nicholas. Of the three volumes of Lulu's Library, two are almost entirely fantasy. Obviously, having a young, impressionable girl living with her reawakened Alcott's desire to write more tales of the imagination.

Of the twelve selections in the first volume of Lulu's Library (1885), seven are fantasy tales. All are didactic. For example, in "The Skipping Shoes," Kitty, a willful child who never does what people want her to do, puts on her new shoes one midsummer day and discovers that the shoes have a power of their own. They force her to run errands when she is asked and to stop when she is about to do something wrong. The magical shoes even give her the ability to talk with a cricket. By the end of the day, when the shoes lose their charms, Kitty has learned two important lessons: to run willingly when asked to perform a task and to love the creatures in nature. Another selection, "A Christmas Dream, and How It Came True," explores the theme of helping the less fortunate as Effie's dream of giving gifts to the poor is brought to reality with the aid of her mother. Helping others is also the lesson in "Rosy's Journey," as young Rosy goes on an adventurous quest to find her father. Along the way, she helps out several animals, who, in turn, end up rescuing her when she is in peril, showing that one's good deeds to others will eventually be returned.

Not only is proper behavior important for children, but, as the reader learns in "The Candy Country," so is a proper diet. When the wind carries Lily away over "rivers and hills, houses and tress," she lands in a strange land where everything is made of candy. However, after eating too much candy, she tires of it and eventually visits bread land, where she discovers healthy food. Learning to be "a good housekeeper," she goes home and grows up from a "sickly, fretful child" to a "fine, strong woman" because she eats very little candy. A healthy body, Alcott implies, is just as important as a healthy mind. Even late in her life and career, Alcott cannot escape the moral values, the positive ideals and the hope of reform that were so much a part of her younger life, of her own growth as an individual.

In mid-October 1887, less than five months before Alcott's death, The Frost-King, the second volume of Lulu's Library, was published. One of the last books Alcott worked on, it brought her career full circle. Five of the eleven tales were stories from her first book, Flower Fables. Thus, one of the last books published during her life (Garland for Girls would appear in November 1887 and the third volume of Lulu's Library posthumously in October 1889) was a reprint of her first one. She had returned to her nature fairyland, her "fairies and fables." Although Alcott revised the tales from Flower Fables by tightening up the writing and reworking some of the scenes, the themes and lessons remained the same. She even dedicated the book to her childhood friend: "To Ellen T. Emerson, one of the good fairies who still remain to us, beloved of poets, little children, and many grateful hearts." Presenting an advance copy of the book to Emerson, she wrote: "I have ventured to dedicate this little book to you in memory of the happy old times when stories were told to you .. . & some other play mates. . . . The earlier tales you will remember in spite of some pruning of too plentiful adjectives; the later ones were told to Lulu. . . . "

The new tales, those told to Lulu, are similar in style to the early Flower Fables; however, several stand out as being perhaps among the best of Alcott's stories. One of the most compelling is "The Flower's Story," a story within a story, which employs the fairy-tale type of the wicked stepmother. Marion, who is ill, is told the story of "The Princes and the Pansies, A Fairy Tale," by a flower that blows into her room. The two princes, Purple and Pluck, are set to inherit their father's kingdom until their stepmother locks them away. Escaping their prison, they settle down far from the kingdom, planting the magic pansy seeds given to them by their old gardener. The enchanted flowers bring comfort and happiness to all those who possess them. Giving up their plans to fight for their home, the two brothers, "Brothers of Mercy" as they are now called, dedicate their lives to helping the poor. Eventually returning to their kingdom when the father is dying, the brothers, in disguise, help their step-mother by advising her to give bread, money, and shelter to her people and to rule with justice. Repenting for her former sins, the queen decides to enter a convent while the two brothers reveal their identity and attain the throne of their kingdom. At the story's conclusion, the flower tells Marion the moral: "'Learn to rule yourself, make your own kingdom a peaceful, happy one, and find nothing too humble to teach you a lesson.'" What makes this story unique is that Alcott uses her frame story to impart the moral. The fairy tale of the two princes never explicitly reveals the lesson. Instead, it reads more like an ancient tale, making it one of the best literary fairy tales Alcott penned.

"The Fairy Spring" also resembles an old folktale rather than the overtly didactic stories of Alcott's career. In this selection, a young girl hears what the rushing brook says: follow me to the magic spring. All day she climbs the mountain, finally reaching the summit and the spring. Spending the night beside the water, she awakens and a spirit tells her to drink of the magic spring and all the pain and weariness will vanish and she will "grow healthy in body, happy in heart, and learn to see and love all the simple wholesome things." The spirit then bids the girl to go and tell the story about the healing powers of the water. Although she spreads the news, few believe her. However, the girl, her mother, a poet, and a man who has lost his family set off for the magic spring. When they return, people begin to listen and hundreds make the pilgrimage to the summit. Some even try to capitalize on the spring's power by building a resort, but the wind blows down the buildings while the water vanishes until the mountaintop is clear. Once again, the magic of the spring heals those who feel the quiet beauty of the enchanted spot. While Alcott does not reveal her moral explicitly, she implies that it is often the children who are wiser and lead the adults, an idea championed by both the British Romantics and the transcendentalists. While several of the new tales are more overtly didactic, those like "The Fairy Spring" and "The Flower's Story" seem to stand out as the more artistically satisfying since the moral is deeply embedded in the enchantment.

In The Uses of Enchantment, Bruno Bettelheim says, "Just because his life is often bewildering to him, the child needs even more to be given the chance to understand himself. .. . He needs .. . a moral education which subtly, and by implication only, conveys to him the advantages of moral behavior, not through abstract ethical concepts but through that which seems tangibly right." In her fairy tales and fantasy stories, Louisa May Alcott recognized that need and fulfilled it. Although her work may appear too didactic to many modern readers, it must be seen as a product of its age. Being influenced by the transcendentalists, Alcott never lost the sense of self-inquiry and selfimprovement that dominates much of her fantasy fiction. With her fantasy tales securely placed in the didactic tradition, Alcott's work aimed to stimulate children's imaginations, to give recognition to their problems, and to offer solutions or suggestions that would make them better individuals in a society. While Alcott's fantasy stories can make no claim to being great art, they are an important part of her canon. They may not be as ground-breaking as Little Women was in the history of realistic children's fiction or as surprising as her recently discovered bloodand-thunder tales, but they do demonstrate that, while she was exploring new territory with some of her work, she was also working within an existing tradition—the didactic fairy tale. Covering the entire span of her literary career, these tales, from her first book to her last one, prove she never lost the love of the "fairy folk."