Old Friends Revisted

One of my holiday traditions is to reread Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. This book has
been a treasured friend since I was nine years old and my beloved elementary school
librarian handed it to me and said I would like it. I broke with tradition this year and
read two books about Ms. Alcott, her family, and their extraordinary circle of friends.
Since those folks influence a number of the artists in our collection (even today) I
thought it might be nice to share.

Eden’s outcasts: the Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father by John Matteson, is captivating look at the family that inspired Ms. Alcott’s most famous story. Mr. Matteson provides well-researched insights into Bronson Alcott’s relationship with his daughter. Alcott’s attempts to promote his transcendentalist views resulted in an impoverished and precarious childhood that drove Louisa to write and achieve financial independence until she actually endangered her own health.

The second book is a lovely chatty book about that extraordinary group of people that still
influence how we look at the world today: American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work by Susan Cheever. Although not as thoughtful or intriguing as the first book, this work offers a nice look at “this sudden outbreak of genius” and the positive and negative effects Emerson, Thoreau, Alcott, Fuller, et al had on each other.

By the way – Abigail May Alcott Nieriker, Louisa’s youngest sister and the inspiration for Amy in Little Women, was a patron and friend to Daniel Chester French, creator of the statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. and the Carter’s own Benediction.

— Katherine M., January 3, 2008, 1:38 p.m.