Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888)

A selective list of online literary criticism and analysis for the 19th-century American novelist and story writer Louisa May Alcott, favoring signed articles by recognized scholars, articles published in reviewed sources, and web sites that adhere to the Modern Language Association Guidelines for Authors of Web Pages

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Introduction

"Louisa May Alcott." A short biography and introduction, from textbook publisher Heath Anthology of American Literature.

"Louisa May Alcott." A biography of Louisa May Alcott. Dictionary of Unitarian and Universalist Biography.

"Louisa May Alcott." Web display from the New York Public Library.

The Alcotts. From PBS's "I Hear America Singing."

Introduction to Louisa May Alcott from the Literary Encyclopedia [subscription service].

Literary Criticism

Alexander, Lynn M. "Unsexed by Labor: Middle-Class Women and the Need to Work." On the employment possibilities for young middle-class women in Alcott's day. ATQ (The American Transcendental Quarterly) 22, 4 (Dec. 2008).

Butterworth-McDermott, Christine. "Behind a mask of beauty: Alcott's beast in disguise." Discusses Alcott's use of fairy tales and their possible connection with her pseudonymous fiction. ATQ (The American Transcendental Quarterly) March 2004.

Derrickson, Teresa. "Race and the Gothic Monster: The Xenophobic Impulse of Louisa May Alcott's 'Taming a Tartar.'" ATQ (The American Transcendental Quarterly) March 2001.

Foote, Stephanie. "Resentful Little Women: gender and class feeling in Louisa May Alcott." College Literature 2005.

Hackenberg, Sara. "Plots and counterplots: the defense of sensational fiction in Louisa May Alcott's 'Behind a Mask.'" ATQ (The American Transcendental Quarterly) June 2008.

Maibor, Carolyn R. "Upstairs, Downstairs, and In-Between: Louisa May Alcott on Domestic Service." New England Quarterly: A Historical Review of New England Life and Letters 79, 1 (Mar. 2006) [first page of article only, blurred].

Patterson, Mark. "Racial sacrifice and citizenship: the construction of masculinity in Louisa May Alcott's 'The Brothers.'" Studies in American Fiction Autumn 1997 [subscription service].

Schewe, Elizabeth. "Domestic Conspiracy: Class Conflict and Performance in Louisa May Alcott's 'Behind a Mask.'" ATQ (The American Transcendental Quarterly) 22, 4 (Dec. 2008).

Strauss, Tracy L. "Trauma's Dialectic in Civil War Literature and Film" [and American Civil War, Ambrose Bierce, Charles Frazier, Herman Melville]. War, Literature, and the Arts: An International Journal of the Humanities 20, 1-2 (2008).

A selected bibliography for Louisa May Alcott, from Donna Campbell.

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