A researcher has discovered about a dozen stories and poems believed to have been written by Louisa May Alcott under a previously unidentified pseudonym. She was known to have gone by several pseudonyms during her career, and E.H. Gould is the potential new moniker discovered by Max Chapnick, a postdoctoral teaching associate in English at Northeastern University.
Little Women is one of my all-time favorite books and I was excited to see these new discoveries. The researcher mentions that he thinks there are even more stories out there like this that people will find in the future. Do you think Alcott could have more undiscovered works out there? https://news.northeastern.edu/2023/11/08/louisa-may-alcott-new-pseudonym/
Weren’t there already some other ones from her… that were terrible?
Yeah her other pseudonyms are a lot of fast paced melodramatic gothic romance-y type stuff, stuff that would serialize or sell well and make money. Interesting to read for the history, not in my experience great literature. It does enrich all the conversations about Jo’s different types of writing in Little Women, though.
I read many of Alcott’s books as a child, and re-read many as an adult when I began working in the children’s department in a library. Wow, the books are SO moralizing and sometimes rather heavy - I can’t believe that I loved them as a 10 year old in the 60’s!
Recently I scored a pretty copy of Eight Cousins so I re-read that, and afterwards A Rose In Bloom on Project Gutenberg and again, I love the stories and agree with a lot of her sermons on women not wearing corsets, and boys not smoking, but there’s such a heavy moral tone to everything.
Everybody loves Little Women (including many who have only seen the movies) but my god, suffer through Jack and Jill. Or others.
So it’s wild that she wrote all the crazy melodramas! I’m hoping this new stuff is bodice rippers or another genre.
But some of them fall into the category of “so bad, they’re good!” Think Pauline’s Passion and Punishment or Behind a Mask. Reading about women villains is like a refreshing palate cleanser after the sometimes cloying morality in Little Women (which I still love. Don’t get me wrong).
Nah, they’re sensation stories, but they’re not terrible. She meant them to be pure entertainment, and that’s what they are. They’re melodramatic and a bit cheesy, like most 19th century sensation stories, but they’re a lot of fun. She knew how to handle a plot. One thing that’s interesting about them us that they’re so obviously her. If you’ve read a few of her books, you can’t miss her voice in them.