Thoroughly researched and moving—will appeal particularly to 19th-century women’s history buffs, Alcott fans and Little...
Revisionist dual biography shows just how much iconic children’s author Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888) “was her mother’s daughter.”
LaPlante (Salem Witch Judge: The Life and Repentance of Samuel Sewall, 2007, etc.), a descendant of Abigail May Alcott’s brother, relies on previously undiscovered family papers and untapped pages from Abigail’s dairies to provide new evidence exposing her undeniable influence on her daughter. Born to a prestigious Boston family, intellectually ambitious Abigail sought independence and dreamed of “teaching school and learning more about the world,” until she found her “ideal friend” in self-made, self-styled reformer Bronson Alcott. LaPlante ably demonstrates that Abigail was a “vibrant writer, brilliant teacher and passionate reformer;” she fought to eradicate slavery and promote women’s equality. When Bronson proved incapable of supporting his wife and children, Abigail, like many 19th-century women, sacrificed her ambitions to maintain the family. In contrast to earlier Alcott biographies that credit Bronson for guiding their daughter’s education and ideas, LaPlante suggests it was Abigail who nurtured Louisa’s feminist ideals and encouraged her to write and keep a diary. The author also hints that Abigail’s unsatisfactory marriage and disappointment contributed to Louisa’s determination to remain a spinster and earn enough money writing stories to care for her beloved Marmee. Fresh material gives flesh to the formerly invisible Abigail, revealing how she and her famous daughter mirrored one another in temperament and depended on one another emotionally. Both longed for freedom; neither achieved it. LaPlante emphasizes Abigail’s family, especially her brother, abolitionist Samuel Joseph May, as well as Abigail's and Louisa’s involvement in the women’s rights movement.
Thoroughly researched and moving—will appeal particularly to 19th-century women’s history buffs, Alcott fans and Little Women aficionados.Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4516-2066-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
A laudable, if cautious, attempt to reclaim the literary status of an important American author from successive waves of neglect and politically charged reinterpretation. Placing Jewett firmly within the pantheon of late 19th century intellectual society, Blanchard (Margaret Fuller, 1978) blends biography and textual analysis to reveal a life of apparently astonishing balance. Born in 1849 in the comfortable and bucolic town of South Berwick, Maine, the daughter of a broad-minded physician, Jewett managed the difficult feat, notes Blanchard, of gaining fame and fortune ``simply by going her own way and doing what she liked to do.'' Although she was past 40 when her most enduring work, The Country of the Pointed Firs, appeared, Jewett, despite crippling bouts of rheumatoid arthritis, began publishing in her teens. At 32 she established her extraordinarily successful liaison with Annie Fields, widow of publisher and Atlantic Monthly founder James T. Fields, and thereafter shuttled happily between her beloved Maine and the highbrow salons of Boston. While giving ample play to Jewett's singular achievement of creating a life and art that constantly sustained and reflected her intellectual and spiritual interests, Blanchard, in her meticulous portrayal of the world of educated 19th-century women, skillfully demonstrates how unexceptional her subject's life appeared within its heady environs. Similarly, her probably asexual relationship with Fields, seen by many as ``perhaps the classic `Boston marriage,' '' was unremarkable in an era of flowery ``romantic friendships'' between accomplished, independent women who rarely had the option of combining work and family. By the same token, Jewett's literary themes—notably the importance of community, a Transcendentalist reverence for nature, and a realism leavened by optimism—were addressed to and embraced by readers of both sexes. Persuasively argued, this spirited work falters only in its failure to measure Jewett's achievements against the best, rather than the whole, literature of her time.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-201-51810-4
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Addison-Wesley
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
A superb dual portrait of the 32nd President and his First Lady, whose extraordinary partnership steered the nation through the perilous WW II years. In the period covered by this biography, 1940 through Franklin's death in 1949, FDR was elected to unprecedented third and fourth terms and nudged the country away from isolationism into war. It is by now a given that Eleanor was not only an indispensable adviser to this ebullient, masterful statesman, but a political force in her own right. More than most recent historians, however, Goodwin (The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, 1987) is uncommonly sensitive to their complex relationship's shifting undercurrents, which ranged from deep mutual respect to lingering alienation caused by FDR's infidelity. One element creating tension was tactical politics: FDR, seeing increased arms production as crucial to the war effort, sought to close the divide between businessmen and his administration, while Eleanor prodded him not to forget about labor, civil rights, and Jewish refugees. As grateful as he was to her for acting as his political eyes and ears, Franklin also could react testily to her unremitting lobbying at times when he desperately needed relief from the strains of running the war effort. Equally fascinating here are the often semi-permanent White House guests who filled the couple's "untended needs": their daughter and four sons; FDR alter ego Harry Hopkins, shaking off grave illness to go on critical diplomatic missions; Franklin's secretary Missy LeHand, prevented by a stroke from serving the man she loved; exiled Princess Martha of Norway, who gave Franklin the unqualified affection of which Eleanor was incapable; two of Eleanor's confidantes, future biographer Joe Lash and the lesbian ex-journalist Lorena Hickok; and Winston Churchill. A moving drama of patchwork intimacy in the White House, played out against the sweeping tableau of the nation rallying behind a great crusade.
Pub Date: Sept. 23, 1994
ISBN: 0-671-64240-5
Page Count: 864
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
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