SOURCE: "Louisa Alcott's Self-Criticism," in Studies in the American Renaissance, edited by Joel Myerson, University Press of Virginia, 1985, pp. 333-43.

[In the following essay, Stern examines Alcott's artistic development throughout her career, focusing in particular on the author's approach to both the craft and the business of fiction writing.]

The self-portrait of a writer is a comparatively rare phenomenon; yet, to the literary critic, it provides insights available nowhere else. Unlike most major—or minor—writers, Louisa May Alcott had few illusions about herself, and when she wrote about the development of her own craft she wore no rose-colored glasses. Her literary self-criticism reveals a consciousness of her limitations, an awareness of her experimentations and growth, her use of source materials, her techniques, her attitude toward language, and her ultimate professionalism. That self-criticism is to be found in her letters, published and unpublished, in her journals, her prefaces and narratives. Excerpted from those sources, her comments upon her literary purposes and style form a revealing self-portrait of one who essayed many genres, learned to heed the public pulse, and became a professional American writer in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Almost from the start, Alcott was aware that she was experimenting, and, as she moved from style to style, that she was developing. Inscribing her first book, Flower Fables (1855), to her mother, she wrote prophetically: "I hope to pass in time from fairies and fables to men and realities."¹ And this, of course, she did in Hospital Sketches (1863), which she described in the preface to a later edition as "simply a brief record of one person's hospital experience." When, about the same time, she tried her hand at sensationalism, her consciousness of experimentation was as sharp as her ambivalence about the results. She wrote her thrillers for money and also, as she confided to her journal, in the hope that they were "good drill for fancy and language."² Whether she was cognizant of the emotional catharsis they gave her is uncertain, but the zest with which she produced "Behind a Mask" and "A Marble Woman," "Pauline's Passion and Punishment" and "The Abbot's Ghost" is reflected in the stories themselves. Louisa Alcott, however, was never proud of those sensational concoctions, and when she transferred their creation to her alter ego Jo March in Little Women, she tempered her enthusiasm with remorse. There Jo's rash "plunge into the frothy sea of sensational literature" is described in some detail, along with her use of exotic characters, her search for unusual sources, her disregard of "grammar, punctuation, and probability." But there too the authoritarian Professor Bhaer plays the role of censor, points out the "poison in the sugarplum" of sensationalism, and causes Jo March to burn her "inflammable nonsense" as she muses: "I'd better burn the house down, I suppose, than let other people blow themselves up with my gunpowder."

The righteous censorship continued in Eight Cousins (1875). There, mindful less perhaps of her own plunge into the "frothy sea" of sensationalism than of the work of Horatio Alger or even of Mark Twain of whom she is said to have disapproved,³ Louisa Alcott lashed out against sensational stories for boys. Using Aunt Jessie as a mouthpiece, she deplored the "popular stories" whose "motto is, 'Be smart, and you will be rich,' instead of 'Be honest, and you will be happy,'" whose "hair-breadth escapes and adventures" gave readers "wrong ideas of life."

And yet, and yet—as late as 1877 Alcott incorporated several sensational themes and episodes into her anonymous adult novel A Modern Mephistopheles, and in the course of a conversation with LaSalle C. Pickett confessed that her "natural ambition is for the lurid style. I indulge in gorgeous fancies and wish that I dared inscribe them upon my pages and set them before the public." In 1882, however, when her collection Proverb Stories was published, the author included a fairly mild thriller, "The Baron's Gloves," "as a sample of the romantic rubbish which paid so well once upon a time. If it shows . . . what not to write it will not have been rescued from oblivion in vain." The pendulum had swung again.

While she was experimenting with her sensational stories, Louisa Alcott was also working on her first novel Moods, published by A. K. Loring of Boston in 1865. Loring, who had advised the author to be concise in introducing her characters, to produce a "story of constant action," and to "teach some lesson of life," had also advised her to prune her first chapter, shorten the tenth, and make the eleventh less cold.⁴ As a result, Alcott revised her novel about the relations of Warwick, Moor, and Sylvia, attempting to delineate a life affected by the moods of her heroine. When it appeared, she apparently studied the reviews with care, especially one in an English periodical which classified Moods as "Transcendental Fiction."⁵ Her reaction was bristling: "My next book shall have no ideas in it, only facts, and the people shall be as ordinary as possible; then critics will say it's all right." As it turned out, Alcott's forte was to lie less in the exposition of ideas than in the depiction of "ordinary" people. In 1882, when she again revised her first novel for a new edition, she made her narrative more conventional and her heroine met "a wiser if less romantic fate than in the former edition."

By 1868, when she wrote Little Women, Alcott was aware that its value lay in its truth and simplicity, "for we really lived most of it," and to her publisher Thomas Niles she later commented, "The success of L. W. comes from just that. . . use of real life and one's own experience." The "use of real life and one's own experience" would dominate most of the Alcott oeuvre during the remainder of her life, and this was purposeful. In 1881, in "A Country Christmas," she has a character remark: "I do feel as if books was more sustainin' ef they was full of every-day people and things, like good bread and butter." And paraphrasing her early mentor A. K. Loring, Alcott continues, "Them that goes to the heart and ain't soon forgotten is the kind I hanker for."⁶ Later, writing of Jo's Boys, she reiterated to Thomas Niles, "the best liked episodes are the real ones." In that last of the March novels, she elected to describe the "simple domestic scenes that touch people's hearts, and make them laugh and cry and feel better." Like Jo March, Louisa Alcott had "found her style at last" in Little Women, and her adherence to that style during the better part of the next twenty years was clearly a conscious effort. The consciousness of that effort is threaded through Louisa Alcott's self-criticism.

Discernible also in the documents that follow is the author's selection of her source material. This consisted primarily of episodes from her own life, episodes from the lives of those around her, and her readings. In describing her methods of work to the journalist Frank Carpenter, she enunciated her reliance upon "real life": "Material for the children's tales I find in the lives of the little people about me .. . In the older books the events are mostly from real life, the strongest the truest." She was early an observer, the child among them taking notes, and aware too that at times she could not observe as closely as she wished. In 1863, writing of her story "My Contraband" to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, she remarked: "I knew that my contraband did not talk as he should, for even in Washington I had no time to study the genuine dialect." As a result, she had relied upon a secondary, more literary source: "The hospital ship & the row of dusky faces were taken from a letter of Mrs Gage's describing her visit . . . with the Wagner heroes in Hilton Head Harbor." Thus this extraordinary letter to Higginson reveals not only Alcott's source material but her awareness of her own imperfections. As she wrote to another abolitionist, James Redpath, of herself: "people mustn't talk about genius—for I drove that idea away years ago. . . . The inspiration of necessity is all I've had, & it is a safer help than any other."

The "inspiration of necessity" was not all she had, however. Louisa Alcott was also equipped with a bagful of devices and techniques that made her a literary craftsman. That she was alive to those techniques is evident especially in her remarkable letter of advice to Mrs. J. E. Sweet of Montana written in 1884 in response to a tentative story outline submitted to her. Every suggestion made by Alcott to Mrs. Sweet reveals some facet of her own craftsmanship: "We write it in the form of a child's story, & let their impressions, words & adventures be the main thread. Give them names, & let them talk as yours did. . . . Imagine you are telling it to children & the right words will come." Alcott goes on to sketch the sequence of events, a sequence that will make for a dramatic narrative. Especially interesting is her advice regarding those slight touches that should be used to adumbrate character and develop plot: "I should open with the father going away, & his good bye, with a hint that it was his last. A few anxious words of the mother's, & happy little plans of the children . . . A fine bit might be made of the hiding in the reeds." Here surely the key words are hint, few, little, bit—words that disclose the device of suggestion to animate characters and describe events, a craft in which Louisa Alcott excelled. With such brief touches as those outlined to Mrs. Sweet, she wove her own narratives, most of which were written in episodic form. As she wrote of Little Men: "As there is no particular plan to this story, except to describe a few scenes in the life at Plumfield .. . we will gently ramble along." The ramble—a series of episodes by a short story writer turned novelist—may have included an occasional invented scene such as the earring episode in Eight Cousins, but for the most part, as Alcott informed her public, "most of the incidents are taken from real life, and .. . the oddest are the truest."

One device consciously used by Alcott to convey a sense of verisimilitude was her language, which was always simple and often ungrammatical. As editor of the juvenile periodical Merry's Museum in 1868 she advised contributors: "Never use a long word, when a short one will do as well," and "Learn to write prose, before you attempt poetry." In An Old-Fashioned Girl (1870) she candidly explained: "I deeply regret being obliged to shock the eyes and ears of such of my readers as have a prejudice in favor of pure English, . . . but, having rashly undertaken to write a little story about Young America, for Young America, I feel bound to depict my honored patrons as faithfully as my limited powers permit; otherwise, I must expect the crushing criticism, 'Well, I dare say it's all very prim and proper, but it isn't a bit like us,' and never hope to arrive at the distinction of finding the covers of 'An Old-Fashioned Girl' the dirtiest in the library." In 1882 she wrote regarding her revision of Moods that certain chapters had been "pruned of as much fine writing as could be done without destroying the youthful spirit of the little romance." "Fine writing," in other words, was to be eschewed when realism and not romance was the object. As Alcott advised the young writer J. P. True: "use short words, and express as briefly as you can your meaning. Young people use too many adjectives and try to 'write fine.' The strongest, simplest words are best."

All this conscious experimentation, this exploitation of various techniques, this selection of sources, this use of language developed in Louisa Alcott the professionalism that may have been her outstanding literary attribute. It consisted in part of learning the public taste and then being able to cater to it. It included compromise as well as skill, and mature attitudes toward many minor aspects of literary work. In several of her unpublished letters Louisa Alcott gave evidence that she was cognizant of her own professionalism. Trained as she had been early in her career by those publishers of sensational periodicals, Elliott, Thomes &⁷ Talbot of Boston, Alcott had learned to tailor her narratives to fit certain requirements: to adapt plot and character to a specific readership; to shape a story for installment appearance; to supply a specified number of words; to meet deadlines. Another publisher, A. K. Loring of Boston, had emphasized the heart and action of a story, and taught her to prune. All these skills were intensified as Alcott pursued her literary career. That she knew she possessed them is evidenced by her letter to Frank Stockton in which she discussed serial publication of Eight Cousins, assuring him, "I can easily take out two chapters, which will bring the tale to the right length for St. Nicholas; & they can be put back again when the book appears. . . . There were 24 chapters, but I can make 20 by shortening some & removing two that can be spared." These surely are the remarks of one whose guide was the "inspiration of necessity," and whose attitude toward her craft was strictly professional.

One ingredient of Alcott's professionalism was her commonsensical attitude toward her writing. When, for example, her use of the name of a living individual for a character in Eight Cousins was challenged, Alcott wrote in 1875: "The name cannot be changed in the book now; in the sequel of course it will be . . . Any further discussion of the affair seems to me unwise as everything in this busy world is so soon forgotten if let alone." Technical matters related to the writer's craft concerned her as a professional, along with the matter of fees, as when she informed Daniel Ford, editor of the Youth's Companion, that she wished to see proofs of her sloppy manuscript, along with "a nice little check for $100, so that I can make my Xmas story pay for my Xmas shopping."

These and other aspects of Alcott's professionalism emerge from three additional groups of letters: the first to the principal publisher of her Civil War days; the second to the editor of St. Nicholas; the third to the leading spirit of Roberts Brothers, Boston. The first group (Letters 1-11) yield insights into the early stages of her developing professionalism. The second (Letters 12-23) concern the writer's later short stories and serials for periodical publication; the third (Letters 24-35) concern her major books, and together those two groups reveal her knowledge of the demands of two distinct readerships, and her ability to supply those demands.

James Redpath, journalist, editor, and lecture promoter, published books in Boston for a short period (1863-64), and since he was a fiery abolitionist, his list reflected his commitment. On the day of John Brown's death, Louisa Alcott, age twenty-seven, wrote a poem, "With a Rose, That Bloomed on the Day of John Brown's Martyrdom," which was published in the Liberator on 20 January 1860. James Redpath, who had come to Concord seeking information for his The Public Life of Captain John Brown (1860), asked permission to reprint Louisa's poem in another volume on John Brown, Echoes of Harper's Ferry (1860).

After serial publication of Alcott's "Hospital Sketches" in the Boston Commonwealth three years later, both James Redpath and the firm of Roberts Brothers requested reprint permission which the author granted to the abolitionist Redpath. After his publication in book form of Hospital Sketches he added two other Alcott titles to his list: The Rose Family. A Fairy Tale (1864) and On Picket Duty, and Other Tales (1864). His publishing program limited to two Civil War years, Redpath ventured into other fields after 1864.

During those two years, however, Alcott was deeply involved with the abolitionist publisher, and the series of her letters to him throw light upon the attitudes of an author learning the diverse aspects of her trade. She sees Hospital Sketches and On Picket Duty through the press, she studies contracts, she learns something of the laws of copyright, she appreciates the value of good notices and the joy of an enthusiastic reception. What is more, she is driven by the necessity of following one publication with another, and the inspiration of that necessity leads her to work on Moods and Work, to indite hospital scenes and fairy tales at approximately the same time. Here too are reflected her opinions of the prestigious Atlantic Monthly as well as of various editors as well as her reactions to the growing demands upon her pen. In short, the Alcott-Redpath letters crystallize Alcott's professionalism in the making.

A decade later, in 1873, Mary Mapes Dodge, author of Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates—a juvenile whose popularity was comparable with that of Little Women—agreed to edit a magazine for children launched by the firm of Scribner & Company. Mrs. Dodge's editorial demands accorded with Louisa Alcott's special skills, for she wished no sermonizing, no wearisome recital of facts, no rattling of dry bones. Rather, she hoped to provide in St. Nicholas a pleasure ground for children's minds. Nonetheless, at first Alcott, busy with other matters, refused to provide a serial for the new periodical. In time, however, from 1874 on, she was to supply for St. Nicholas thirty-two narratives including three serials.⁸ Her payment for single stories, such as "Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore," was $100. Her payment for serials was $3,000, and of these she contributed to the magazine Eight Cousins, Under the Lilacs, and Jack and JUL Of Jack and Jill,⁹ Alcott wrote in her journal in September 1879: "Home from the seaside refreshed, and go to work on a new serial for 'St. Nicholas,'—'Jack and Jill.' Have no plan yet but a boy, a girl, and a sled, with an upset to start with. Vague idea of working in Concord young folks and their doings. .. . A chapter a day is my task."¹⁰

Long before the writing of Jack and Jill, Louisa Alcott had met Mary Mapes Dodge. During a visit to New York in 1875, they had both attended a Fraternity Club meeting, and the two successful women had shared confidences, Mrs. Dodge recalling how the Mapes girls—much like the March girls—had dramatized their childhood readings." As the years passed, they shared their professional skills as well, and the letters, published and previously unpublished, that Alcott wrote to her editor between 1874 and 1887 yield further insights into her professional concerns.

The reliance upon real or live subjects which Alcott mentioned to Frank Carpenter had earlier been noted in her letters to Mrs. Dodge. Writing about Jack and Jill, for example, she remarked, "We have many little romances going on among the Concord boys and girls, and all sorts of queer things, which will work into 'Jack and Jill' nicely," and again, "Jack and Jill are right out of our own little circle, and the boys and girls are in a twitter to know what is going in; so it will be a 'truly story' in the main." In her journal she recorded, after receiving the first proof of the serial, "The nearer I keep to nature, the better the work is. Young people much interested in the story, and all want to 'go in.' I shall have a hornet's nest about me if all are not angels."¹² From her father's recollections, as well as his letters and journals, she hoped to write a narrative of his life, "An Old-Fashioned Boy," which was never produced.

As she relied upon life for her characters, she relied heavily upon the suggestions and desires of her young readers. Writing from Nonquitt in 1879, for example, she mentioned to Mrs. Dodge that "the twenty boys & girls here at the beach clamor for more stories & suggest many plans." Around the same time she informed her editor: "I have casually asked many of my young folks, when they demand a new story, which they would like, one of that sort [a Revolutionary tale], or the old 'Eight Cousin' style, and they all say the latter." As a result, Jack and Jill rather than a story of the American Revolution issued from her inkstand. Even one-year-old Lulu, her niece, might offer "hints and . . . studies of character" for her work. Toward the end of her life, she reiterated to Mrs. Dodge, "There are usually about forty young people at N[onquitt]., and I think I can get a hint from some of them."¹³

If children sat for their portraits in Alcott's work, and if their demands helped shaped her narratives, she thanked them in her own way, often by serving as their literary agent. "A little cousin, thirteen years old has written a story & longs to see it in print. It is a well-written bit & pretty good for a beginning, so I send it to you hoping it may find a place in the children's corner."

In Alcott's letters to Dodge, the "simmering" process she described to Frank Carpenter—"My head is my study, & there I keep the various plans of stories for years sometimes, letting them grow as they will till I am ready to put them on paper"—is referred to. She mentions, for example, her intermittent work on Jo's Boys and "the tales 'knocking at the sauce pan lid & demanding to be taken out,'" and she promises to "simmer" on a serial for St. Nicholas.

These letters also reflect Alcott's consciousness of the differing requirements for a magazine serial and a book, an awareness she indicated in her letter to Frank Stockton. Writing to Mrs. Dodge in June 1877 about Under the Liliacs, she stated, "Twelve chapters are done, but are short ones, and so will make about six or seven numbers in 'St. Nicholas.' I will leave them divided in this way that you may put in as many as you please each month; for trying to suit the magazine hurts the story in its book form, though this way does no harm to the monthly parts, I think."

The Alcott correspondence with the editor of St. Nicholas is of considerable interest for the light it casts upon the author's attention to the mechanics of writing and publishing. She is concerned, for instance, with matters of copyright. The British periodical, Good Things: A Picturesque Magazine for the Young of All Ages, serialized Eight Cousins between December 1874 and November 1875. The novel was also serialized, between January and October 1875, in St. Nicholas, and in the same year Roberts Brothers published it in book form. As Alcott wrote in her journal in November 1874: "Funny time with the publishers about the tale; for all wanted it at once, and each tried to outbid the other for an unwritten story. I rather enjoyed it, and felt important with Roberts, Low [Sampson Low of London], and Scribner [publisher of St. Nicholas] all clamoring for my " 'umble works."¹⁴ She also felt somewhat concerned regarding her rights as her letter of 2 December to Mrs. Dodge indicates. There she writes: "To me the matter appears thus. I make an agreement with S[cribner]. & Co. about Eight Cousins exactly as I have always done with other serials. Reserving all rights to the tale outside of thier [sic] magazine. Among these rights is that of selling it as a serial in England which gives me my copyright there & secures the book hereafter. Of course I protect S. & Co. by forbidding the tale to appear in this country in any English magazine, & if it does I have the power to stop it."

Even more professional than her concern about copyright was Alcott's punctiliousness about deadlines, a characteristic revealed in her letter of 22 December 1887 to Mrs. Dodge: "I send you the story your assistant editor asked for. As it is needed at once I do not delay to copy it. . . You are used to my wild Mss. & will be able to read it."

Still another facet of Alcott's professionalism appears in these letters to Dodge—her deep interest in the illustration of her stories. She had many illustrators, from her first, her sister May, whose unfortunate sketches adorned Part One of Little Women, to Frank Merrill, whose pen-and-ink drawings were used for a late edition of that novel. In an early letter to Mrs. Dodge, Alcott compared the drawings of Mrs. Innis with those of Elizabeth B. Greene, who had illustrated Morning-Glories, and Other Stories: "I like Mrs Innis' drawing better than Miss Greene's. Mrs I. is illustrating a book for me now. . . . Her children are altogether charming, thier [sic] little fat legs captivate me entirely. But I love E. B. G. & dont mind her infant's dropsical heads very much." Later, considering illustrations by Mrs. Foote for Under the Lilacs, Alcott wrote to her editor: "I will send you the first few chapters during the week for Mrs. Foote, and with them the schedule you suggest, so that my infants may not be drawn with whiskers, and my big boys and girls in pinafores, as in 'Eight Cousins.' .. . I do feel a natural wish to have one story prettily adorned with good pictures, as hitherto artists have much afflicted me." As late as 1883, when Spinning-Wheel Stories was conceived,—to be published first as individual tales in St. Nicholas and then in book form by Roberts Brothers—the author was mindful of the relationship between illustration and text, writing to Mrs. Dodge: "A Christmas party of children might be at an old farm-house . . . grandma spins and tells the first story; . . . The mother and child picture would come in nicely for the first tale."

Alcott's professional concern with book illustration also punctuates her letters to her book publisher, Thomas Niles of Roberts Brothers. Her business relations with Niles antedated those with Mary Mapes Dodge. Trained in the Old Corner Bookstore, Thomas Niles had been active in the firm of Whittemore, Niles and Hall before joining Roberts Brothers. As partner of Roberts, he had in September 1867 suggested that Louisa Alcott write the "girls' book" which in 1868 and 1869 became Little Women over the Roberts imprint. Around the same time the firm issued Bronson Alcott's Tablets, and for the remainder of her life the fortunes of Louisa Alcott would be linked with the enterprise of Thomas Niles of Roberts Brothers. According to Bronson Alcott, Niles early "spoke in terms of admiration" of Louisa's "literary ability, thinking most highly of. . . [her] rising fame and prospects."¹⁵ With this admiration he offered an honesty rare among publishers for, when Roberts made their offer for Little Women, the firm advised the author to "keep the copyright."¹⁶ That Louisa Alcott appreciated the ability and integrity of Thomas Niles is indicated by her modest acknowledgment of his creative role in that book, and by her characterization of him in Jo's Boys, where he is metamorphosed into Mr. Tiber, "one of the most successful men in the business; also generous, kind, and the soul of honor. . . . Mr. Tiber sits at his desk like a sort of king, receiving his subjects; for the greatest authors are humble to him and wait his Yes or No with anxiety."¹⁷

Alcott's letters to Niles, reprinted here, are scarcely humble, for the majority date from the latter period of their relationship, between 1880 and 1887. Substantiating the professionalism found in her letters to Dodge, they are concerned with such matters as shaping collections from contributions to periodicals, illustrations, and the combining of illustrations with collections. On 23 June 1883, Alcott writes to Niles that "Mrs. 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 from time to time, and so be getting material for a new set of books like 'Scrapbag,' but with a new name."¹⁸ Indeed, as it turned out, it was in just that manner that Spinning-Wheel Stories was compiled. Later, the writer whose desire to produce far exceeded her physical ability to do so, suggested to her publisher a "companion volume" for Spinning-Wheel Stories—her Garland for Girls. Still another anthology, Lulu's Library,¹⁹ could be assembled, she informed Niles, "to match the pictures we bought." "Old ladies come to this twaddle when they can do nothing else." Alcott's continued interest in book illustration is apparent in several of her letters to Niles. Of the Frank Merrill illustrations for Little Women she wrote in 1880: "The drawings are all capital . . . Mr. Merrill certainly deserves a good penny for his work. Such a fertile fancy and quick hand as his should be well paid, and I shall not begrudge him his well-earned compensation, nor the praise I am sure these illustrations will earn. .. . I am much obliged to him for so improving on my hasty pen-and-ink sketches." Five years later she submitted "some funny sketches by Mrs. L." to illustrate a fairy book, and as late as 1886 she considered the possibility of issuing Jo's Boys without any illustrations. "Why have any illustrations? The book is not a child's book . . . and pretty pictures are not needed."

Having submitted a bas-relief of herself for the frontispiece of Jo's Boys instead of illustrations, Louisa wrote to Niles, "Sorry you don't like the bas-relief; I do. A portrait, if bright and comely, wouldn't be me, and if like me would disappoint the children; so we had better let them imagine 'Aunt Jo young and beautiful, with her hair in two tails down her back,' as the little girl said."²⁰

From the corpus of letters and journal entries, prefaces and excerpts from narratives here assembled, another portrait of Aunt Jo is developed—the self-portrait of a professional writer who, neither a perfectionist nor a purist, became one of the most popular American authors of the latter half of the nineteenth century.²¹

Notes

¹ All quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are from the documents that follow.

² Ednah D. Cheney, Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters, and Journals (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1889), p. 131.

³ See, for example, Frank Luther Mott, Golden Multitudes: The Story of Best Sellers in the United States (New York: Macmillan, 1947), p. 249.

⁴ A. K. Loring to Louisa May Alcott, [Boston, 1864], in Publishers for Mass Entertainment in Nineteenth Century America, ed. Madeleine B. Stern (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1980), p. 192. See also Stern, Louisa May Alcott (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971), p. 140.

⁵ "Transcendental Fiction," Reader, 5 (15 April 1865): 422-23.

⁶ Loring had written: "Stories of the heart are what live in the memory" (see note 4).

⁷ See Leona Rostenberg, "Some Anonymous and Pseudonymous Thrillers of Louisa M. Alcott," Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 37 (2d Quarter 1943): 131-40.

⁸ Cheney, Louisa May Alcott, p. 320. "Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore" appeared in St. Nicholas for October 1879.

⁹ Cheney, Louisa May Alcott, p. 295; The Letters of A. Bronson Alcott, ed. Richard L. Herrnstadt (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1969), p. 697. "Eight Cousins" appeared in St. Nicholas for January-October 1875; "Under the Lilacs" in December 1877-October 1878; "Jack and Jill" in December 1879-October 1880.

¹⁰ Cheney, Louisa May Alcott, p. 321.

¹¹ Stern, Louisa May Alcott, p. 249.

¹² Cheney, Louisa May Alcott, p. 322.

¹³ Cheney, Louisa May Alcott, p. 373.

¹⁴ Cheney, Louisa May Alcott, pp. 274-75.

¹⁵The Letters of A. Bronson Alcott, p. 427.

¹⁶ Cheney, Louisa May Alcott, p. 199.

¹⁷ Louisa May Alcott, Jo's Boys (Cleveland: World, 1957), p. 181.

¹⁸ Six volumes of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag appeared over the Roberts Brothers imprint between 1872 and 1882.

¹⁹ Three volumes of Lulu's Library appeared over the Roberts Brothers imprint between 1886 and 1889.

²⁰ Cheney, Louisa May Alcott, p. 376.

²¹ For a far less comprehensive compilation of Alcott self-criticism, see Madeleine B. Stern, "Louisa M. Alcott's Self-Criticism," More Books, 20 (October 1945): 339-46.