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I intend to revisit this letter in another post.
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110 The Selected Letters of Louisa May Alcott). She goes on to explain again how the state of marriage was not her point (and she makes quite an eloquent case for the importance and sanctity of marriage, despite the fact that her parents had such a difficult relationship), but rather “to show the effect of a moody person’s moods upon their life.
MOODS OF A STORY FREE
(I had the privilege, by the way, of seeing this letter when I visited the Special Collections Room of the Concord Free Public Library it was one of the ones I hand copied in part – here are my two posts on that visit: part one and part two). 109 The Selected Letters of Louisa May Alcott, edited by Joel Myerson, Daniel Shealey and Madeleine Stern). Ayer who apparently “so entirely misunderstood Moods that I am anxious to set you right as far as I can in a hasty letter” (pg. it was so altered, to suite the taste and convenience of the publisher, that the original purpose of the story was lost sight of, and marriage appeared to be the theme instead of an attempt to show the mistakes of a moody nature, guided by impulse, not principle.”Īfter Moods was first published, Louisa addressed a letter from a Mr. She goes on to say, “When Moods was first published. She felt the book had been misunderstood and took advantage of her fame to “give my first novel, with all its imperfections on its head, a place among its more successful sisters: for into it went the love, labor, and enthusiasm that no later book can possess.” (from the preface of the 1882 version of Moods).
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Published originally in 1864, Louisa revisited the novel again in 1882 and restored some of the lost chapters, and changed the ending. There was no doubt, however, that she had to do violence to her first novel, cutting out nearly half of it. In the hope of pleasing everyone, she took everyone’s advice, and like the old man and his donkey in the fable suited nobody.”Īnd therein lies the origins of Moods, albeit probably romanticized in Little Women as many things were. So, with Spartan firmness, the young authoress laid her first-born on her table, and chopped it up as ruthlessly as any ogre. “Having copied her novel for the fourth time, read it to all her confidential friends, and submitted it with fear and trembling to three publishers, she at last disposed of it, on condition that she would cut it down one third, and omit all the parts which she particularly admired. At such times the intruder silently withdrew, and not until the red bow was seen gaily erect upon the gifted brow, did anyone dare address Jo.”Įminently practical, Louisa/Jo found it necessary to “chop up” her “baby” if it was ever to see the light of day as a published book” If this expressive article of dress was drawn low upon the forehead, it was a sign that hard work was going on, in exciting moments it was pushed rakishly askew, and when despair seized the author it was plucked wholly off, and cast upon the floor. “They did not always venture even to ask this question, but took an observation of the cap, and judged accordingly. If we are to assume that the descriptions of Jo as writer are accurately paralleling Louisa’s actions, then I must say that, always an actress at heart, Louisa had a flair for the dramatic as demonstrated by her need to visually show how she was doing: This cap was a beacon to the inquiring eyes of her family, who during these periods kept their distance, merely popping in their heads semi-occasionally to ask, with interest, “Does genius burn, Jo?” “Her ‘scribbling suit’ consisted of a black woolen pinafore on which she could wipe her pen at will, and a cap of the same material, adorned with a cheerful red bow, into which she bundled her hair when the decks were cleared for action. This other dimension had its share of rituals for Jo, and I wonder if they didn’t hold true for Louisa as well: “Every few weeks she would shut herself up in her room, put on her scribbling suit, and ‘fall into a vortex’, as she expressed it, writing away at her novel with all her heart and soul, for till that was finished she could find no peace.” “Falling into a vortex,” as she calls it, it’s like Louisa/Jo steps into another dimension, oblivious to the outside world: Louisa describes Jo’s writing process which likely mirrors her own. Moods was Louisa May Alcott’s first serious novel and her”baby,” most likely the book that Jo referred to in Chapter 27 of Little Women, “Literary Lessons.”