Alcott's "Rigmarole": The Composition and Publication History of Little Women
- Author(s):
- Amanda L. French (see profile)
- Date:
- 1999
- Group(s):
- TM Book History, Print Cultures, Lexicography
- Subject(s):
- 19th-century American literature, Women in literature, Publishing history, Literature and film, Feminist criticism, Popular culture
- Item Type:
- Conference paper
- Conf. Title:
- Popular Culture Association National Conference
- Conf. Org.:
- Popular Culture Association
- Conf. Loc.:
- San Diego, CA
- Conf. Date:
- March 1999
- Tag(s):
- feminist literature, didactic literature, gender relations, Moral allegory
- Permanent URL:
- http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/qnmz-tf68
- Abstract:
- _Little Women_ is a work composed piecemeal and narrated in more than one generic mode. Alcott's complete financial dependence on what she could earn from her writing, her ambivalence toward conventional narratives for women, and, most importantly, her alternating submission to and rebellion against the demands (real and imagined) of her readers and her editor/publisher, Thomas Niles--all these factors made Little Women a veritable piece of patchwork. Picking apart its seams through a close attention to the history of its composition and publication suggests that it is these very contradictions, both formal and thematic, that have helped the story achieve the mythic escape velocity it still enjoys.
- Metadata:
- xml
- Status:
- Published
- Last Updated:
- 1 year ago
- License:
- Attribution
- Share this: