Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet who wrote the novel Little Women (1868) and its sequels 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, Henry David Thoreau, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Little Women is a coming-of-age novel written by American novelist Louisa May Alcott, originally published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869 at the request of her publisher. 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.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1877.
The French Lieutenant's Woman is a 1969 postmodern historical fiction novel by John Fowles. The plot explores the fraught relationship of gentleman and amateur naturalist Charles Smithson and Sarah Woodruff, the former governess and independent woman with whom he falls in love. The novel builds on Fowles' authority in Victorian literature, both following and critiquing many of the conventions of period novels.
The Secret Garden is a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett first published in book form in 1911, after serialisation in The American Magazine. Set in England, it is one of Burnett's most popular novels and is seen as a classic of English children's literature. Some of Burnett's other popular novels include Little Lord Fauntleroy, The Lost Prince and A Little Princess. Several stage and film adaptations have been made of The Secret Garden. The American edition was published by the Frederick A. Stokes Company with illustrations by Maria Louise Kirk and the British edition by Heinemann with illustrations by Charles Heath Robinson.
A Wrinkle in Time is a young adult science fantasy novel written by American author Madeleine L'Engle. First published in 1962, the book won the Newbery Medal, the Sequoyah Book Award, the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, and was runner-up for the Hans Christian Andersen Award. The main characters – Meg Murry, Charles Wallace Murry, and Calvin O'Keefe – embark on a journey through space and time, from galaxy to galaxy, as they endeavor to rescue the Murrys' father and fight back The Black Thing that has intruded into several worlds.
The Borrowers is a children's fantasy novel by the English author Mary Norton, published by Dent in 1952. It features a family of tiny people who live secretly in the walls and floors of an English house and "borrow" from the big people in order to survive. The Borrowers also refers to the series of five novels including The Borrowers and four sequels that feature the same family after they leave "their" house.
Hard Times: For These Times is the tenth novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. The book surveys English society and satirises the social and economic conditions of the era.
Margaret Oliphant Wilson Oliphant was a Scottish novelist and historical writer, who usually wrote as Mrs. Oliphant. Her fictional works cover "domestic realism, the historical novel and tales of the supernatural".
Mary Martha Sherwood was a nineteenth-century English children's writer. Of her more than four hundred works, the best known include The History of Little Henry and his Bearer (1814) and the two series The History of Henry Milner (1822–1837) and The History of the Fairchild Family (1818–1847). Her evangelicalism permeated her early writings, but later works cover common Victorian themes such as domesticity.
Tom's Midnight Garden is a children's fantasy novel by English author Philippa Pearce. It was first published in 1958 by Oxford University Press with illustrations by Susan Einzig. The story is about a twelve-year-old Tom who, while staying with his aunt and uncle, slips out at midnight and discovers a magical, mysterious Victorian garden where he befriends a young girl named Hatty. The novel has been reissued in print many times and also adapted for radio, television, cinema, and the stage.
Mary Louisa Molesworth, néeStewart was an English writer of children's stories who wrote for children under the name of Mrs Molesworth. Her first novels, for adult readers, Lover and Husband (1869) to Cicely (1874), appeared under the pseudonym of Ennis Graham. Her name occasionally appears in print as M. L. S. Molesworth.
Original Stories from Real Life; with Conversations Calculated to Regulate the Affections, and Form the Mind to Truth and Goodness is the only complete work of children's literature by the 18th-century English feminist author Mary Wollstonecraft. Original Stories begins with a frame story that sketches out the education of two young girls by their maternal teacher Mrs. Mason, followed by a series of didactic tales. The book was first published by Joseph Johnson in 1788; a second, illustrated edition, with engravings by William Blake, was released in 1791 and remained in print for around a quarter of a century.
The cuckoo clock, more than any other kind of timepiece, has often featured in literature, music, cinema, television, etc., in the Western culture, as a metaphor or allegory of innocence, childhood, old age, past, fun, mental disorder, etc. It has apparently been viewed more as a symbol or a toy – a folksy musical apparatus with animated figures – fascinating and a bit mysterious rather than as a serious timekeeper.
Laura Belinda Charlotte Jewry, was a Victorian English writer primarily known for her children literature. Her work was often produced in children series including Aunt Louisa's Toy Books, Aunt Louisa’s Big Picture Series, and The Young Folk's Shakespeare Series.
A String in the Harp is a children's fantasy novel by Nancy Bond first published in 1976. It received a 1977 Newbery Honor award and the Welsh Tir na n-Og Award. It tells of the American Morgan family who temporarily move to Wales, where Peter Morgan finds a magical harp key that gives him vivid visions of the past. This well-received novel is an unusual time travel story, with its focus on the emotional pain and separation the Morgans experience after the death of their mother and the gradual healing they find through their experiences.
Gertrude Demain Hammond or Mrs. McMurdie was a British painter and children's book illustrator.
Louise Frances Field was an Irish novelist and literary critic who wrote an early historical study of children's literature in England.
Alice Abigail Corkran was an Irish author of children's fiction and an editor of children's magazines. Born in France to Irish parents, she grew up in the stimulating environment of her mother's literary salon. She was a playmate of Robert Browning's ageing father, and still had his workbooks in her possession when she died. As well as writing a number of well received novels, she edited first the Bairn's Annual and then The Girl's Realm, being the founder of that magazine's Guild of Service and Good Fellowship, which maintained a cot at the Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, among other charitable works.
