 | |
| Author | Cornelia Meigs |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Louisa May Alcott |
| Genre | Biography |
| Publisher | Little, Brown & Company/Hachette Book Groump |
Publication date | 1933 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Hardback |
| ISBN | 978-0-316-56594-3 |
| OCLC | 33669076 |
Invincible Louisa is a biography by Cornelia Meigs that won the Newbery Medal and the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award. It retells the life of Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women .
Invincible Louisa, subtitled "The Story of the Author of Little Women", opens with Louisa Alcott's birth on a snowy November day in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Her father, Bronson Alcott, ran a school for young children in their home. "It was a time of great happiness, peace, and security... Happiness was to continue... but peace and security were not to come again for a very long time". [1] So Meigs introduces her reader to Alcott's life. Her father, Bronson, is portrayed as brilliant but impractical, unable to support his family as a man of the times was expected to.
The book follows the Alcott family to Boston and Concord, as Bronson Alcott seeks places that understand his unusual views on education and transcendentalism. Louisa proves to be an active child, getting into trouble and causing her mother, Abba, some anxiety. When she is ten the family moves again to Fruitlands, the transcendentalist community Alcott helps found. By now there are four girls in the family. Meigs portrays Bronson Alcott and the oldest daughter, Anna, as being fully committed to the ideals of this new life, but says that Louisa and her mother understand how much hard work would be necessary for a communal farm to succeed. The contrast between idealistic and practical is shown when Bronson and the only other adult leave the area for a conference just as the barley is being harvested. An approaching storm has Abba and the children bringing in the grain alone. In less than a year Fruitlands failed, and the family moved several more times.
Invincible Louisa the Alcotts' friendship with Ralph Waldo Emerson, and recounts some of the events Louisa later used in Little Women, including meetings of the Pickwick Club and the death of one of Louisa's younger sisters, Elizabeth. Louisa later leaves the family to earn her own way writing and teaching. During the Civil War she travels to Washington, DC to nurse soldiers. The book concludes with Louisa writing Little Women and the two books that followed, Little Men and Jo's Boys . The success of these books, according to Meigs, gives Louisa her own "happy ending... the whole of what she had wanted from life -- just to take care of them all." [2]
Invincible Louisa ends with a five page chronology of Louisa May Alcott's life.
Children's Literature calls Invincible Louisa a "graceful, well-written account"... Besides presenting the facts of her life, the author weaves in many evocative descriptions of Louisa's environment and feelings, thus creating a biography that seems more interesting and appealing than a more factual, unadorned work." [3] Kirkus Reviews called Meigs "one of the best-loved authors of fiction for boys and girls." It went on to praise "the new biography, which makes Joe (sic) live again in the courageous, gallant girlhood of this favorite of American story tellers." [4]
Invincible Louisa received the Newbery Medal for "the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children" in 1934. [5] It was awarded the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1963. [6]
Amos Bronson Alcott was an American teacher, writer, philosopher, and reformer. As an educator, Alcott pioneered new ways of interacting with young students, focusing on a conversational style, and avoided traditional punishment. He hoped to perfect the human spirit and, to that end, advocated a plant-based diet. He was also an abolitionist and an advocate for women's rights.
Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet best known for writing the novel Little Women (1868) and its sequels Good Wives (1869), Little Men (1871), and Jo's Boys (1886). Raised in New England by her transcendentalist parents, Abigail May and Amos Bronson Alcott, she grew up among many well-known intellectuals of the day, including Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau. Encouraged by her family, Louisa began writing from an early age.
Little Women is a coming-of-age novel written by American novelist Louisa May Alcott, originally published in two volumes, in 1868 and 1869. The story follows the lives of the four March sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy—and details their passage from childhood to womanhood. Loosely based on the lives of the author and her three sisters, it is classified as an autobiographical or semi-autobiographical novel.
Caddie Woodlawn is a children's historical fiction novel by Carol Ryrie Brink that received the Newbery Medal in 1936 and a Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1958. The original 1935 edition was illustrated by Newbery-award-winning author and illustrator Kate Seredy. Macmillan released a later edition in 1973, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman.
Abigail May Alcott Nieriker was an American artist and the youngest sister of Louisa May Alcott. She was the basis for the character Amy in her sister's semi-autobiographical novel Little Women (1868). She was named after her mother, Abigail May, and first called Abba, then Abby, and finally May, which she asked to be called in November 1863 when in her twenties.
Little Men, or Life at Plumfield with Jo's Boys, is a children's novel by American author Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888), which was first published in 1871 by Roberts Brothers. The book reprises characters from her 1868–69 two-volume novel Little Women, and acts as a sequel in the unofficial Little Women trilogy. The trilogy ends with Alcott's 1886 novel Jo's Boys, and How They Turned Out: A Sequel to "Little Men". Alcott's story recounts the life of Jo Bhaer and her husband as they run a school and educate the various children at Plumfield. The teaching methods used at Plumfield reflect transcendentalist ideals followed by Alcott's father, Bronson Alcott. Book education is combined with learning about morals and nature as the children learn through experience. Paradoxes in the story serve to emphasize Alcott's views on social norms.
The Wayside is a historic house in Concord, Massachusetts. The earliest part of the home may date to 1717. Later it successively became the home of the young Louisa May Alcott and her family, who named it Hillside, author Nathaniel Hawthorne and his family, and children's writer Margaret Sidney. It became the first site with literary associations acquired by the National Park Service and is now open to the public as part of Minute Man National Historical Park.
Abigail "Abba" Alcott was an American activist for several causes and one of the first paid social workers in the state of Massachusetts. She was the wife of transcendentalist Amos Bronson Alcott and mother of four daughters, including Civil War novelist Louisa May Alcott.
Fruitlands was a utopian agrarian commune established in Harvard, Massachusetts, by Amos Bronson Alcott and Charles Lane in the 1840s and based on transcendentalist principles. An account of its less-than-successful activities can be found in Transcendental Wild Oats by Alcott's daughter Louisa May Alcott.
Orchard House is a historic house museum in Concord, Massachusetts, United States, opened to the public on May 27, 1912. It was the longtime home of Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888) and his family, including his daughter Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888), who wrote and set her novel Little Women (1868–69) there.
Ramona and Her Father is the fourth book in Beverly Cleary's popular Ramona Quimby series. In this humorous children's novel, Mr. Quimby loses his job and Ramona thinks up ways to earn money and help her family out. Published in 1977, Ramona and Her Father was a Newbery Honor Book.
Marguerite de Angeli was an American writer and illustrator of children's books including the 1950 Newbery Award winning book The Door in the Wall. She wrote and illustrated twenty-eight of her own books, and illustrated more than three dozen books and numerous magazine stories and articles for other authors.
Cornelia Lynde Meigs (1884–1973) was an American writer of fiction and biography for children, teacher of English and writing, historian and critic of children's literature. She won the Newbery Medal for her 1933 biography of Louisa May Alcott, entitled Invincible Louisa. She also wrote three Newbery Honor Books.
Eight Cousins, or The Aunt-Hill was published in 1875 by American novelist Louisa May Alcott. It was originally published as a serial in St. Nicholas and is part of the Little Women Series. It is the story of Rose Campbell, who has been recently orphaned and resides with her maiden great aunts, the matriarchs of her wealthy family near Boston, until her guardian, Uncle Alec, returns from abroad to take over her care. Through his unorthodox theories about child-rearing, she becomes happier and healthier while finding her place in her family of seven boy cousins and numerous aunts and uncles. She also makes friends with Phebe, her aunts' young housemaid. Eight Cousins received both favorable and unfavorable reviews in the early days of its publication. Reviews focused on Alcott's stylistic tone as well as the portrayal of characters and realism. In Eight Cousins, Alcott discusses transcendental education, child-rearing, and social differences.
Jo's Boys, and How They Turned Out: A Sequel to "Little Men" is a novel by American author Louisa May Alcott, first published in 1886. The novel is the final book in the unofficial Little Women series. In it, the March sisters' children and the original students of Plumfield, now grown, are caught up in real world troubles as they work towards careers and pursue love.
Aileen Lucia Fisher was an American writer of more than a hundred children's books, including poetry, picture books in verse, prose about nature and America, biographies, Bible-themed books, plays, and articles for magazines and journals. Her poems have been anthologized many times and are frequently used in textbooks. In 1978 she was awarded the second National Council of Teachers of English Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children. Born in Michigan, Fisher moved to Colorado as an adult and lived there for the rest of her life.
Elizabeth Sewall Alcott was one of the two younger sisters of Louisa May Alcott. She was born in 1835 and died at the age of 22 from scarlet fever.
Anna Bronson Alcott Pratt was the elder sister of American novelist Louisa May Alcott. She was the basis for the character Margaret "Meg" of Little Women (1868), her sister's classic, semi-autobiographical novel.
Transcendental Wild Oats: A Chapter from an Unwritten Romance is a prose satire written by Louisa May Alcott, about her family's involvement with the Transcendentalist community Fruitlands in the early 1840s. The work was first published in a New York newspaper in 1873, and reprinted in 1874, 1876, and 1915 and after.
Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father is a 2007 biography by John Matteson of Louisa May Alcott, best known as the author of Little Women, and her father, Amos Bronson Alcott, an American transcendentalist philosopher and the founder of the Fruitlands utopian community. Eden's Outcasts won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Biography.
