Flower Fables

by Louisa May Alcott

Overview

The first work published by Louisa May Alcott, "Flower Fables" (1854) is a charming collection of fantastical stories originally written for Ralph Waldo Emerson's daughter, Ellen Emerson. The stories arose from Alcott's experiences telling stories to the children of her neighbours in Concord, Connecticut, and contain themes of fantasy, love, and adventure. This wonderful collection is perfect for children and would make for ideal bedtime reading material. Contents include: "The Frost King: or, The Power of Love", "Eva's Visit to Fairy-Land", "The Flower's Lesson", "Lily-Bell and Thistledown", "Little Bud", "Clover-Blossom", "Little Annie's Dream: or, The Fairy Flower", "Ripple, the Water-Spirit", and "Fairy Song". Louisa May Alcott (1832 - 1888) was an American short story writer, novelist, and poet most famous for writing the novel "Little Women", as well as its sequels "Little Men" and "Jo's Boys". She grew up in New England and became associated with numerous notable intellectuals of her time, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Henry David Thoreau. Other notable works by this author include: "An Old-Fashioned Girl" (1886), "Eight Cousins" (1869), and "A Long Fatal Love Chase" (1875). Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with the original text and artwork.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781528714112
Publisher:	Read & Co. Children's
Publication date:	10/08/2019
Pages:	114
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.27(d)
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

Louisa May Alcott, an American novelist and poet, was born in 1832 in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Alcott was the daughter of the famous visionary Bronson Alcott and was friend of Emerson and Thoreau. Her education was under the direction of her father, for a time at his old Temple School in Boston and, later, at home. She turned to writing in order to increase the family income and had many short stories printed in magazines and newspapers. In addition to writing, she worked as a teacher, governess, and Civil War nurse, as well as being an advocate of abolition, women's rights, and prohibition. After her experiences she wrote Hospital Sketches (1864) which won wide praise, followed by an adult novel, Moods. She is best known as the author of the novel Little Women and its sequels Little Men and Jo's Boys. Little Women is generally based on Alcott's childhood experiences with her three sisters. Alcott was writing of her own incense experiences with fame. She expired in 1888 and is buried in Sleepy Hollow cemetery in Concord Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

	The Frost King: or, The Power of Love	3
	Eva's Visit to Fairy-Land	39
	The Flower's Lesson	77
	Lily-Bell and Thistledown	87
	Little Bud	153
	Clover-Blossom	177
	Little Annie's Dream: or, The Fairy Flower	189
	Ripple, the Water-Spirit	213
	Fairy Song	247

Editorial Reviews

Written for Ralph Waldo Emerson's daughter, Ellen, when Alcott was 16, and first published in 1855, these six prosy fairy tales were chosen from a 1992 collection, Louisa May Alcott's Fairy Tales and Fantasy Stories, edited by Daniel Shealy; Shealy provides an informative afterword here. Readers meet a cast of elves, fairies, brownies and sprites with such Shakespearean names as Willy Wisp, Moonbeam and Thistledown, and the children who occasionally dally with them. Thinly disguised morality lessons told in an over-upholstered style, they instruct the audience in the importance of various virtues. In "The Frost King," for example, elves resolve to conquer the ice-hearted ruler of winter through peaceable means ("Let us teach you how beautiful sunshine and love and happy work can make you"). More than a little dated, the stories grow tedious with lofty homilies (e.g., "little Annie dwelt like a sunbeam in her home, each day growing richer in the love of others and happier in herself"). Preiss's (The Pig's Alphabet) garish artwork further hampers an emotional connection to the stories. The lack of tonal subtlety is aggravated by a self-consciously multicultural-esque grouping of fairy folk with oversize but misshapen eyes and bizarrely pointed ears and chins. Even the typeface, which has distractingly flowery ligatures, is overdone. All but the most die-hard Alcott fans can skip this one. Ages 5-12. (June)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Flower Fables is a treasury of six different stories penned by Louisa May Alcott. These old-fashioned fairy tales have been compiled and edited by Daniel Shealy, who has done editing on several Alcott books. The text is very readable, and has magic flavor added via the font's joining together of several letters. Today's children, like many children of the past, will enjoy meeting Alcott's fairies, sentient flowers, and other real and imagined characters.

Illustrator Leah Palmer Preiss has filled the book with delightful and intersting fairies and other creatures. The illustrations are bright and full.Readers may want to watch for the bonuses of quotations and tiny protraits of those who influenced Louisa May Alcott.

This book would make a good bedtime storybook, and like many tales of old, has good morals that children could take away with them perhaps without even realizing there was a lesson involved. The afterword is also interesting as it shares interesting details about Miss Alcott. For example, she wrote these tales when she was 16. Another bonus at the end of the book is the biographies that go along with the quotations and miniature portraits.
--SM Ford

Independent Publisher

Louisa May Alcott's "fairy folk" are back! Best known for her classic books Little Men and Little Women, her equally enchanting fairy tales are now reintroduced to a new generation of readers in this timeless volume of stories beautifully illustrated by the artistic talents of Leah Palmer Preiss with the publication of Flower Fables. This wonderfully delightful collection of six fairy tales and twenty-five newly comissioned illustrations permit the reader to enter ALcott's nature fairyland and meet her fascinating and memorable fairy folk. Flower Fables is a highly recommended addition to all personal, school, and public library mythology, folklore and fairy tale collections.

Reviewers Bookwatch