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Tax-exempt? | Little Women Abroad The Alcott Sisters' Letters from Europe, 1870-1871 By the time of the Alcott sisters' sojourn, Louisa's Little Women was already an international success, and her most recent work, An Old-Fashioned Girl, was selling briskly. Louisa was now a grand literary lioness on tour. She would compose Little Men while in Europe, and her European letters would form the basis of her travel book Shawl Straps. If Louisa's letters reveal a writer's eye, then May's demonstrate an eye for color, detail, and composition. Although May had prior art training in Boston, she came into her own only during her studies with European masters. When at a loss for words, she took her drawing pen in hand. These letters of two important American artists, one literary, the other visual, tell a vibrant story at the crossroads of European and American history and culture. Daniel Shealy is a professor of English at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. He is the editor of Alcott in Her Own Time and has also been involved in numerous publications related to Alcott's fiction, letters, and journals. November 2008 ISBN 0820330094 cloth • $34.95 376 pp. • 7 x 9 in. • 78 b&w photos • 1 map"These letters add to our knowledge of the Alcotts and demonstrate the artistic eye through which May Alcott saw the treasures of Europe. They also inform us about the compostion of Little Men, and as many of Louisa's letters were incorporated into Shawl Straps, allow readers to see her at work both as a letter writer searching for literary topics and as a professional author adapting these descriptions to her published stories. Not only is this the only work of its kind about Louisa May Alcott, it is also a valuable addition to the fields of travel literature and nineteenth-century transatlantic studies." —John Matteson, author of Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father"Little Women Abroad tells an engrossing tale in letters. In the spring of 1870, two sisters escape sleepy Concord-'one of the dullest little towns in Massachusetts,' according to the elder-to lead a vagabond life in Europe for eighteen months-'poking round strange cities,' in the words of the younger. The two women pursue their respective arts, writing and painting, and grow independent, meanwhile witnessing 'two revolutions, an earthquake, an eclipse, and a flood.' Best of all, these intrepid correspondents aren't just any pair of innocents abroad. They are the novelist and witty social observer Louisa May Alcott-by 1870, so famous that she vies with the splendors of England, Italy, and Switzerland for the attention of her fellow travelers-and her youngest sister May, the fledgling artist for whom this European tour would prove pivotal in a career that culminated in a Paris Salon exhibition within the decade. Daniel Shealy's expertly edited volume will leave readers with 'heads full of new and larger ideas, [and] hearts richer in the sympathy that makes the whole world kin,' as Louisa herself wrote of this inspiring sisterly sojourn." —Megan Marshall, author of The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism |
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