Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father

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Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father (eBook) Pub. Date: 8/13/2010 Publisher: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
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Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father (Reprint) Pub. Date: 11/3/2008 Publisher: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
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Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father Pub. Date: 8/20/2007 Publisher: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.

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Overview

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography

Louisa May Alcott is known universally. Yet during Louisa's youth, the famous Alcott was her father, Bronson—an eminent teacher and a friend of Emerson and Thoreau. He desired perfection, for the world and from his family. Louisa challenged him with her mercurial moods and yearnings for money and fame. The other prize she deeply coveted—her father's understanding—seemed hardest to win. This story of Bronson and Louisa's tense yet loving relationship adds dimensions to Louisa's life, her work, and the relationships of fathers and daughters.

Winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Biography

Editorial Reviews

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.)

Library Journal

Matteson (English, John Jay Coll., CUNY) relates that "in the marvelous year of 1868, there were suddenly two best-selling authors residing under the roof of Orchard House . . . father and daughter achieved their most significant literary breakthroughs in the same month." In his account of Louisa May Alcott and her father, Bronson Alcott, he relies heavily on the journals, letters, and works of both authors to portray their unique lives, also quoting extensively from the writings of famous friends and neighbors like Ralph Waldo Emerson. In doing so, he allows readers to glimpse both the minds of these two literary figures and the times in which they lived. Matteson succinctly covers major events in his subjects' lives, e.g., the publication of Louisa May's novel Little Womenand Bronson's attempts to establish "a saintly community of scholars in which money would be unknown." Adding another dimension to his portrayal is his concise and perceptive analysis of both Alcotts' literary works. Matteson's graceful style and careful scholarship confirm his premise that the two were indeed "Eden's outcasts . . . for both, life was a persistent but failed quest for perfection." Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ4/1/07.]
—Kathryn R. Bartelt

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Kirkus Reviews

Neatly interlaced biography profiles a father of New England Transcendentalism and his bestselling daughter. Bronson and Louisa May Alcott shared a birthday (November 29, 1799 and 1832 respectively) and died within 40 hours of each other in 1888. As Matteson (English/John Jay College) ably shows in his debut, their lives were inextricably intertwined, even during the occasional brief periods when they lived apart. After offering a snapshot of a low point in Bronson's life, the 1837 auction of furniture, supplies and books from his beloved, failing Temple School, the narrative moves back to his birth on a Connecticut farm and proceeds chronologically thereafter. Young Bronson mystified his parents with his passion for reading. With little formal education, he traveled as a peddler before devoting the rest of his life to educating others-sometimes in schools, sometimes in lectures and "conversations," sometimes in his writings. Matteson shows all facets of Bronson's character: his fierce work ethic, his feckless financial ways (the Alcotts were perennially saved from ruin by the kindnesses of friends), his loyalty to his family. An early and ferocious opponent of slavery, he could be a remarkably clear thinker, but he was also clueless about his own foolishness and irresponsibility. Louisa, a tomboy with a temper, seemed at times the living refutation of her father's genial theories about human development. In her childhood, she sat at the knees of Emerson, Thoreau and other Concord notables. While serving as a nurse during the Civil War, she became severely ill and was treated with a toxic, mercury-based medication that caused her much suffering and shortened her life. Matteson capablydescribes Louisa's feverish devotion to her family and to her writing, the failures in love, the struggles to succeed that came to fruition with the publication of Little Women, her subsequent celebrity, travels and literary triumphs. Carefully researched and sensitively written. Essential. Agent: Peter Steinberg/Regal Literary

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780393333596
Publisher: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date: 11/3/2008
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 512
Sales rank: 264,936
Product dimensions: 8.16 (w) x 5.40 (h) x 1.25 (d)

Meet the Author

John Matteson holds doctoral degrees from Harvard and Columbia Universities. He was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Biography for Eden's Outcasts and is the author of The Lives of Margaret Fuller. He is an associate professor of English at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, where he lives.

Acknowledgments     ix
Prologue: Disgrace     3
Beginnings     13
A Birthday in Germantown     39
The Temple School     55
"Orpheus at the Plough"     86
The Sowing of the Seeds     116
First Fruits     134
Lost Illusions     150
Father and Daughter     165
Destitution     196
Orchard House     233
War     260
Shadows and Sunlight     285
Journeys East and West     308
Miracles     334
"The Wise and Beautiful Truths of the Father"     355
"Come Up with Me"     400
Notes     429
Bibliography     465
Index     471

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griffin721

Posted February 23, 2009

Eden's Outcasts

Very detailed and very interesting subject. It's almost like being a fly on the wall. Loved every minute of reading.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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WayneDilts

Posted August 4, 2010

So well-written it's as if you are standing in the Alcott living room while the story unfolds.

Amazing amount of research went into this book, and it is no wonder that it won the Pulitzer Prize for Biograpghy. Matteson writes so well, it is as if you were standing next to each of the characters as he unfolds the story tht many already know, but adding the details that most of us don't. Captivating, making each of the Alcotts so much more than historical characters. Moving in its simplicity. I was sorry to reach the end.
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Posted February 9, 2009

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