Louisa May Alcott's name is known universally. Yet, during her youth, the famous Alcott was her father, Bronson - an eminent teacher, lecturer and admired friend of Emerson and Thoreau. Wilful and exuberant, Louisa flew in the face of all her father's intricate theories of child rearing. She, in turn, could not understand the frugal life Bronson preached, one that reached its epitome in the failed utopian community of Fruitlands. In a family that insisted on self-denial and spiritual striving, Louisa dreamed of wealth and fame. At the same time, like most daughters, she wanted her father's approval. As her father struggled to recover from a breakdown and slowly resurrect his career, Louisa learned to support her family, teaching but finally finding her vocation in writing. This story of their tense yet loving relationship adds dimensions to Alcott's life, her work and the relationships of fathers and daughters.
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From Publishers Weekly
They were both born on November 29 (he in 1799 and she in 1832), but willful, passionate Louisa May Alcott couldn't have been more different from her serene, unworldly father, Bronson, whom fellow transcendentalists such as Emerson and Thoreau revered for his wide-ranging philosophical pursuits and occasionally ridiculed for his lack of common sense. Bronson's failed educational and utopian ventures placed a great burden on his wife, Abba, while elder daughters Louisa and Anna worked as teachers and paid companions to support the family. Yet Louisa honored her father's steadfast principles, avers Matteson, a professor of English at John Jay College, who views both father and daughter with a sympathy that doesn't quite conceal the book's slightly specious premise. Bronson was far closer to Anna and younger sister Lizzie; Louisa's fiery nature sometimes dismayed him. She only gained his full approval when mistreatment with a mercury-based medicine during the Civil War made her a near-invalid for the rest of her life. This is really a biography of the whole Alcott family, though it narrows to a dual portrait after the wild success of Little Women in 1868 gave Louisa the independence she longed for and Bronson enjoyed more modest acclaim for his book Tablets and lecture tours out West. 26 illus. (Aug.)
Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Bronson Alcott filled hundreds of pages with minute observations of his infant daughters, believing that fatherhood was the ideal laboratory for testing his beliefs in the natural genius of children and a holistic mode of education. Yet he was baffled by the willfulness of his second-born, Louisa May. And so begins the dramatic father-daughter relationship on which first-time biographer Matteson so adeptly builds a riveting double portrait of two exceptional Americans and abolitionists: one a man of quixotic dreams and abject failures; the other a resourceful, self-sacrificing, and revolutionary woman writer. Making penetrating use of primary sources, Matteson gracefully interprets an astounding family drama of compassion and creativity, folly and courage, deprivation and mental instability. Sharing a birthday and dying within two days of each other, Bronson and Louisa were the driving forces of the Alcott household as he impressed and dismayed their friends Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau by taking innovative ideas to ruinous extremes, and she became the destitute family's wage-earner and author of one of the world's most beloved novels. Matteson's lucid, commanding biography casts new light on an unusual father-daughter bond and a new land at war with itself. Seaman, Donna--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
"A double biography is a difficult thing to bring off but Matteson does it beautifully, giving a vivid but delicate account of two complicated characters inextricably entwined." Rosemary Hill, The Guardian "The story of Louisa's life has been told frequently, but Matteson's well-structured account... is engrossing." Matthew Peters, The Times Literary Supplement"
A splendid new dual biography...compassionate and compelling. -- Daniel Dyer, San Diego Union-Tribune
Carefully researched and sensitively written. Essential. -- Kirkus Reviews starred review
Vividly, affectingly, Matteson describes one family's struggle to live their lives with meaning, without taint or exploitation. -- Philip McFarland, Boston Sunday Globe
作者简介
John Matteson holds doctoraldegrees from Har
| 出版社 | W. W. Norton & Co. |
|---|---|
| 作者 | John Matteson |