Three Other Novels Someone Should Write About Louisa May Alcott

By Kelly O’Connor McNees

Louisa May Alcott was a remarkable woman who lived a full and unusual life. When I first decided to write a novel about her, I wanted to include everything I had learned in my research. Alas, the novel had other plans.

Ultimately, The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott became a story of Louisa in the summer of 1855, when she was just 22 and on the precipice of her career as a writer. But this is just one of the many stories I could have written about her. Here are some other fascinating episodes in her life that seem to cry out for exploration in fiction:

–In 1843, when Louisa was ten years old, her father Bronson moved the family, along with a few like-minded philosophers, to a 90-acre farm called Fruitlands. The group planned to renounce commerce, eating meat and dairy products, taking warm baths, wearing wool or cotton clothing, and using animals to work the land. They lasted until January of the New England winter.

–In 1862, Louisa answered Dorothea Dix’s call for nurses to care for the thousands of wounded soldiers streaming in to the nation’s capital. For three weeks, she fed and bathed patients, changed bandages and linens, and then developed typhoid fever.

–In 1879, Louisa’s youngest sister May gave birth to a daughter and died a few weeks later. The following year, little Lulu came to Concord. Louisa, at age 47, became a mother after all.

Kelly O’Connor McNees lives in Chicago. The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott is her first novel. To read more about the author and the book, click here

IMAGE: Famous daguerreotype of a young Louisa May Alcott

Congratulations to the following W & M readers and winners of this title:

Molly, Margay, and Cheryl

We’ll be in touch real soon!

Eiffel's Tower

Movies, History, and Books for Kids

Louis XIV and his Marvelous Legs

librarypat

What interesting tidbits about her. I have see your book mentioned on several sites and it sounds like an interesting read. I will have to get them to order it, for I am certain many of their patrons would enjoy it. I know I will be looking for it to read.
She did not live a boring or sheltered life. I had best find a good biography, for there is more to her than I imagined. I guess a few more novels are in order.
Emily

Sounds fascinating! I’ve done a little bit of research on Alcott myself, and choosing this particular summer seems really interesting.
http://www.theburtonreview.com Marie

No need to enter me, as I have read, loved and adored this book. This is just a perfect read for ANYONE who enjoys Louisa May Alcott. I would love to read anything that Kelly decides to write about next, but I would be doubly ecstatic if she would continue something about LMA!
Rachel W.

This sounds so interesting! Thank you for the giveaway!
http://brokenteepee.blogspot.com Patty

Thanks for the giveaway. I have read such good reviews about this book.
Margay

I love Louisa May Alcott! I’d love to read this.
Margay
http://redbellfarm@netins.net Evelyn

Please enter me! I love biographies and I always wanted to grow up and be Jo.
http://bookhopping.wordpress.com Molly @ bookhopping

I would love the opportunity to win this book — I’ve been hearing great things, and I just visited Concord this winter and so am on a bit of a LMA kick. Thanks for this chance!
Sue

You always have such interesting books reviewed! As always, I enjoy Wonders and Marvels. Please enter myname in the draw for this book. Ms. Alcott has long fascinated me.
Cheryl Smith

I read the Louisa May Alcott books as a child and enjoyed them. I keep coming back to the “Eight Cousins” and “Rose in Bloom”. My favorite is Uncle Alec and I always cheer for Mac when he finally gets the girl. I would be interested to read more about the author of such a great book. Please enter me for the drawing.
http://fewmorepages.blogspot.com Katy

I’ve been reading nothing but great reviews of this one. I’d love to win a copy!
http://thetruebookaddict.blogspot.com/ Michelle @ The True Book Addict

Little Women has always been one of my favorite books. I have read it many times over the years. Alcott was an amazing person. I would love to win this book…I’ve really been wanting to read it! Thanks for the giveaway.
Kelcie Carlson

Sounds like an incredible book! I’d love to read it.

Thank you
http://www.wondersandmarvels.com Editor

Thanks everyone! The winners for this one are: Molly, Margay and Cheryl! Congrats!
Melanie

I’d love to see a biography written of May Alcott, the youngest. Ever since I’ve read Martha Saxton’s biography of Louisa May, I read in it a very few but pertinent sentences concerning May’s own personality and ambitions, besides a few more relevant to her relationship with Louisa, and Louisa’s sometimes shaded perceptions of May, and last of all snips from May’s own letters, with her perceptions of herself, her life as it is and as she wants it to be, and her own very real and never compomised independence. I think May’s achievement of independence was an even greater feat than that of Louisa May, because it was truly all her own-a clean break, with all the family strings broken which Louisa could never bring herself to do, because she needed her family to need her in a way that May never did. Of all the sisters , I think May was the only one who truly broke away from the complex needinesses of her family, whereas Louisa was co-dependent on them (and they on her). May was the only one self-confident enough to meet the world on its own terms and still remain who she was, without being defensive about it or feeling schizophrenic about it-Louisa’s way to cover any feelings of inferiority was to hold back from people and observe them from an assumed sense of superiority. She could be very condescending and judgemental when people didn’t meet her ideals -was she unaware that she didn’t always meet her own ideals? If people couldn’t meet her on HER ground, she wroe them off. May could find pleasure in most everybody, and not because she was a lightweight, but because she was willimg to meet THEM, to give of herself in social situations, which popular people do.

It seems as though May was an extrovert, and Louisa an introvert-introverts can, when they decide to expend the energy, be the most popular person in the room-ie, Louisa’s gift for being witty and funny-as long as it was people with whom she found reason to be comfortable-when Louisa decided to be “on”, she came totally “on”, but it took everything out of her to have done it, afterwards she would be fatigued and need solitude to “rejuvenate”

May early on learned she would HAVE to go her own way if she didn’t want to spend her life always caught up in the co-dependency of this family. I believe she was the most independent of all-she charted her course, gratefully received any help towards it-as most young women of her day would have had to do somewhere along the way-until she finally reached the point where she really could be independent-to another continent, if that’s what it took. Of all the sisters, May seems to be the one who least appreciated the perception of their relatives or of her own immediate family that they were a “pathetic” family. May decided she wasn’t pathetic,and would not be bound by buying into the family self-portrait. I admire her immensely for her stand, because she was the only one who achieved true independence, even more than Louisa. For all Louisa’s grumblings sometimes, she herself by making herself indispensable in too many ways, ensured that she tightened the bonds which already bound her to her family-and with her role as breadmaker, they to her.

May was the only one who didn’t have the almost paranoid “Alcotts-against-the-world” characteristic of the others. The world was a beautiful place full of interesting people, and she wasn’t afraid to see and meet them all, with no chip on her shoulder or sense of being “one of those weird Alcotts”

I think a good writer should tell May Alcott’s story. It would be a short one, both because her life was short and because I imagine there aren’t the records for hers that there were for her famous sister. But May made her mark in her short life-her art was shown more than once in Paris amongst the company of some of the highest of the day, and she herself came to know some of the famous names of the European art world. Most all who mention her, mention her charm, graciousness. She seems to have had thAt wonderful quality of truly enjoying and being interested in people, and they returned the favor thanks to her easy grace and her intrinsic glamor. Somebody really needs to write her story!
http://- p.vaishnavi

I like to read books written by LOUISA MAY ALCOTT.They are very intresting to read.