Alcott in Her Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of Her Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associ

I can't recall offhand any author who is so completely identified with one of her characters as Louisa May Alcott is with "Jo" of "Little Women," her most successful (and probably still her most beloved) work. It is therefore truly fascinating to read, as the book's subtitle says, "chronicles of her life, drawn from recollections, interviews, & memoirs by family, friends, & associates" (some quite short) in which we can detect ways in which Louisa does and doesn't resemble her most famous literary creation. She emerges as a fresh, funny, affectionate, morally indignant, struggling, ambitious, and totally appealing personality. While it is true that her father Bronson occupies rather more than his share of space, I think this accurately reflects the amount of airspace he took up in the Alcott family, and sheds a lot of light on Louisa's subsequent treatment of "Papa March" in her novels. For people struggling with what to make of Susan Cheever's book on Louisa's Concord, "American Bloomsbury," this book is a wonderful compendium of primary sources on the subject, and the introductory paragraphs that head each of the 36 pieces are most informative. The Hawthorne, Emerson, and Thoreau families all make appearances amongst these pages, and one may judge for oneself the nature of their inter-relationships.

The book Alcott in Her Own Time is not just another biography of the famed author of Little Women, Louisa May Alcott and her incredible life. Nor was it written by some person living in our time who never knew Louisa May Alcott. No, this biography on Louisa May Alcott was written by many people and each and every one of them knew Louisa May Alcott or had a memorable encounter with her. This biography is full of stories about the author and her "All-American" family; many of the stories have never been known to the public until now. This book delves deep into the lives of all the Alcotts with many funny stories and childhood friends mentioned. The book shows just how connected the Alcotts were, too, with family and with many important people from that time period. Stories from family or close friends never fail to make the connections between the childhood of Louisa and the story about her family: Little Women. This is an interesting and enjoyable aspect of the book because it shows how important family was to the great author and it shows that great characters are found in real life too. Another component of the book that is enjoyable is the photos. There are photos of Louisa and her family, as well as a few drawings done by May Alcott, otherwise known as Amy March. It is also interesting to read the many comments on how the unforgettable character of Jo March is the absolute heart and soul of Louisa May Alcott, even down to the adventures and experiences she has. Like the ever memorable characters of Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, the Alcotts and Louisa's characters are some of the very few that will live on forever in books and in the minds of those who read about them. The book is very good, but somewhat redundant at times. It often repeats stories or facts, even though they are written by a different person each time. It can get quite tiresome to read the same stories or family tree of the Alcotts seven or eight times. Overall, the book was sweet and interesting. This book is better suited for those who could ake it through the unabridged version of Little Women and all Alcott lovers. It portrayed the Alcotts as they were and as they were known to everyone who met them.

This book is a real gem. The editor did a marvelous job and I think it is a must have for anyone who is interested in Louisa May Alcott. Within this book we have eyewitness accounts of people who knew Louisa May Alcott and her family, before and during her fame. The editor gives a brief biography of the person giving their account and this is very helpful because you have a greater understanding of how this person knew Louisa. I found some of the passages very moving especially those that spoke of Lizzy(Beth in Little Women). There was one part in the book where a person encountered Louisa sewing Lizzy's burial shroud and Louisa was so upset she ran from the room. These are the small glimpses that make the book priceless. I will agree with the other reviewer that this book does cover a lot about Louisa's father. Although, to be fair, I found that he was mentioned when people were recalling the family. I do not recall any stand-alone essays on him. Some of the entries found in this book maybe redundant if you are an avid Louisa May Alcott fan. For instance there are some journal snippets from Louisa May Alcott and a few other things that I have read before. However, this is an excellent addition to your Alcott collection.

Daniel Shealy, an expert on Louisa May Alcott who has edited or co-edited a dozen books about her and by her, turns his attention now to contemporary accounts of her life and personality. He has dug up old interviews from the nineteenth century, as well as scores of memorials published after her death, from the people who remembered her and loved her best; and, in a few cases, from people who barely knew her at all but who knew what star quality she had. Alcott was one of America's greatest novelists but her reputation suffered from the "stain" of being known primarily as a writer of "girls' literature." She hid the dozens of blood and thunder pulp stories she wrote under pseudonyms, publishing a few under her own name at the very end of her life as a kind of metafictional illustration of the kind of thing Jo March, LITTLE WOMEN's heroine, might have been writing during the years she was scrambling so for money. The Alcotts' household is enchantingly Bohemian, up to a point. Edward Emerson, son of Ralph Waldo, credits the Concord circle with inventing all the famous childhood games that came into vogue later in the century. They put on their own plays, invented "Charades," wrote impromptu poems on set subjects in half an hour's time. He remembers a period when the Alcotts didn't even have enough money for candlesticks, but their inventive minds carved out niches for candles in the small ends of large orange carrots! These details really bring back a period of American history long lost to us. Could the book be a litle bit longer than it has to? The only reason I wonder this is, if you pick up the book and flip to any page, you might not find any mention of Louisa herself. Many of the memoirists wrote as much about her father, Bronson Alcott, as they did about her. And believe me, he gets tiresome after awhile. A book more sharply focussed on Miss Alcott herself might be a welcome treat. However, on second thought, there's no getting arund the eternal mystery of Bronson Alcott, a man so transcendental he he believed, like Christ, in letting anyone come into his house. Thus the four daughters had often to give up their beds to literally the scum of the earth, and the quacks, and the sexually adventurous, and the "hippies" of the 1840s of which, it seems, there were plenty. LMA rarely complained but I can only imagine there must have been some resentment about the way Bronson A. forced his girls to encounter the lame and the halt? Maybe that's why she left him out of LITTLE WOMEN, shipped him off to fight the Civil War.