Bibliography

Payne, Alma J. Louisa May Alcott: A Reference Guide. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1980, 87 p.

Comprehensive bibliography of secondary sources on Alcott.

Biography

Anthony, Katharine. Louisa May Alcott. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1938, 315 p.

Questions the morality and upbringing of the Alcott family. Anthony's position has been disputed, most notably by Odell Shepard, who believes that Anthony's conjectures are not based on solid evidence.

Bedell, Madelon. The Alcotts: Biography of a Family. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1980, 400 p.

Seeks connections between Alcott's career and her family background, particularly her parents' marriage and life in the Alcott household.

Cheney, Ednah D., ed. Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters, and Journals. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1907, 404 p.

Biography sanctioned by Alcott's sister, Anna Alcott Pratt. Relies heavily on Alcott's journal entries and correspondence and also includes excerpts from her previously unpublished poetry.

Saxton, Martha. Louisa May: A Modern Biography of Louisa May Alcott. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977, 428 p.

Presents a psychoanalytical interpretation of Alcott's life, work, and family relations. Includes information on the author's historical milieu.

Stern, Madeleine B. Louisa May Alcott. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1950, 424 p.

Respected biography that has been influential in generating further research into Alcott's life and works.

Criticism

Auerbach, Nina. "Little Women." In her Communities of Women: An Idea in Fiction, pp. 55-73. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978.

Argues that unlike Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Alcott's "world of the March girls is rich enough to complete itself, and in this richness lies the tension of Little Women and its two sequels."

Baym, Nina. Woman's Fiction: A Guide to Novels by and about Women in America, 1820-1870. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1978, 308 p.

Discusses the highly popular and influential women's fiction of the nineteenth century, attempting to correct the critical neglect of these writings by offering a serious examination of their content.

Gay, Carol. "The Philosopher and His Daughter: Amos Bronson Alcott and Louisa." Essays in Literature 2, No. 2 (Fall 1975): 181-91.

Reexamines Alcott's relationship with her "controversial" father. Gay comments: "A new look at the relationship between this interesting pair might reveal much about both of them and perhaps shed some light on Louisa's role in creating and furthering her father's reputation as an irresponsible dreamer."

Keyser, Elizabeth Lennox. "Domesticity Versus Identity: A Review of Alcott Research." Children's Literature in Education 16, No. 3 (Autumn 1985): 165-75.

Surveys criticism on Alcott with a view to illuminating a controversy in feminist scholarship: "[D]id the development of a separate woman's sphere in the nineteenth century doom women to a constricted life a domesticity or did it give them unprecedented power—not only to regulate their homes but also to effect social change?"

—— Whispers in the Dark: The Fiction of Louisa May Alcott. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1993, 228 p.

Explores Alcott's works for adults and distinguishes them from Alcott's "sentimental" juvenile fiction.

MacDonald, Ruth K. Louisa May Alcott. Boston: Twayne, 1983, 111 p.

Offers critical discussion of Alcott's major works, attempting "to place Alcott's works for children within the context of her works for both children and adults, and in the broader context of literature for children in America."

Marsella, Joy A. The Promise of Destiny: Children and Women in the Short Stories of Louisa May Alcott. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1983, 166 p.

Examines Alcott's "Scrap Bag" stories "for what they can tell us about the ascribed characteristics of children's minds and about how parents hoped to shape their children's behavior." Treats the stories "primarily as cultural documents and secondarily as works of art."

Payne, Alma J. "Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888)." American Literary Realism 1870-1910 VI, No. 1 (Winter 1973): 27-43.

Offers a survey of Alcott's literary career, commenting on the critical reception of each of her major works. Also includes bibliographic information.

Showalter, Elaine, ed. Alternative Alcott: Louisa May Alcott. New Brunswick and London: Rutgers University Press, 1988, 462 p.

Presents a collection of Alcott's fiction for adults. Showalter's introduction provides an overview of Alcott's literary career and argues that "[t]he masks that proliferate in Alcott's stories represent her own perennial effort to conceal the deeper meanings of her work from herself as well as from others."

Stern, Madeleine B., ed. Behind a Mask: The Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott. New York: William Morrow & Company, Inc., 1975, 277 p.

Presents four of Alcott's pseudonymous thrillers with a critical introduction by Stern.

——. "Louisa Alcott's Feminist Letters." In Studies in the American Renaissance (1978): 429-52.

Argues that Alcott's letters reveals a moderate feminism rooted in her humanist beliefs.

—— Critical Essays on Louisa May Alcott. Boston: G. K. Hall & Company, 1984, 295 p.

Anthologizes significant early reviews of Alcott's fiction.

——. A Double Life: Newly Discovered Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1988, 246 p.

Presents five "sensational thrillers" by Alcott, which were "newly discovered" in 1986. Stern's critical introduction discusses the publishing history and literary influences for the works.

Strickland, Charles. Victorian Domesticity: Families in the Life and Art of Louisa May Alcott. University: The University of Alabama Press, 1985, 198 p.

Examines Alcott's life and works in terms of conflicts between the ideals and the realities of nineteenth-century family life.

Tuttleton, James W. "The Sensational Miss Alcott." The New Criterion 14, No. 2 (October 1995): 15-20.

Questions the validity of the publication of Alcott's thriller, A Long Fatal Love Chase, along with attempts to legitimatize the study of Alcott's sensational fiction. Tuttleton argues that Alcott's production of these works was the result of economic, rather than artistic, inspiration: "Popular trash is still trash, as Louisa May Alcott knew very well."

Widdicombe, Toby. "A 'Declaration of Independence': Alcott's Work as Transcendental Manifesto." ESQ 38, No. 3 (3rd Quarter 1992): 207-29.

Argues for an ideological rather than strictly biographical interpretation of Alcott's novel Work.

Additional coverage of Alcott's life and career is contained in the following sources published by Gale Research: Children's Literature Review, Vols. 1, 38; Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vols. 1, 42, 79; Discovering Authors; Discovering Authors Modules; Junior Discovering Authors; Major Authors and Illustrators for Children and Young Adults; Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, Vol. 6; World Literature Criticism, 1500 to the Present; Yesterday's Authors of Books for Children.