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Louisa May Alcott
- The Woman Behind Little Women
- Narrated by: Harriet Reisen
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
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Publisher's summary
Louisa May Alcott portrays a writer as worthy of interest in her own right as her most famous character, Jo March, and addresses all aspects of Alcott's life: the effect of her father's self-indulgent utopian schemes; her family's chronic economic difficulties and frequent uprootings; her experience as a nurse in the Civil War; and the loss of her health and frequent recourse to opiates in search of relief from migraines, insomnia, and symptomatic pain.
Stories and details culled from Alcott's journals; her equally rich letters to family, friends, publishers, and admiring readers; and the correspondence, journals, and recollections of her family, friends, and famous contemporaries provide the basis for this lively account of the author's classic rags-to-riches tale. Alcott would become the equivalent of a multimillionaire in her lifetime based on the astounding sales of her books, leaving contemporaries like Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Henry James in the dust. This biography explores Alcott's life in the context of her works, all of which are to some extent autobiographical. A fresh, modern take on this remarkable and prolific writer, who secretly authored pulp fiction, harbored radical abolitionist views, and completed heroic service as a Civil War nurse, Louisa May Alcott is also the story of how the all-time beloved American classic Little Women came to be. This revelatory portrait will present the popular author as she was and as she has never been seen before.
In the new biography, Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women, author and narrator Harriet Reisen writes not of the genteel, fictional March family, but of the impoverished, activist Alcotts and their obstreperous daughter who would become a world-renowned author.
Reisen begins by noting her fascination with all things Alcott, having spent much of her adult years researching the notable author, writing and producing various works about Louisa May and family. Reisen’s reading of the text is suitable to the subject matter, capturing Louisa May’s tone — from girlish euphoria to gossipy social commentary to curmudgeonly irritation. The Alcotts were lifelong abolitionists whose family friends included Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Dorothea Dix, and Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Louisa May Alcott wrote poetry, short stories, plays, reportage, and children’s books. Reisen’s fascinating detail about Alcott’s success at gritty pulp fiction illustrates Louisa May’s ability to adapt her talent to what would sell. Under the pseudonym “A.M. Barnard”, Louisa enthusiastically wrote of the seamy, taboo topics that were supposedly unknown to women of polite society. Louisa’s lurid fiction paid the family bills from her late teens until the success of Little Women; yet until recently the connection between Alcott and Barnard was not known. Reisen’s narration is especially fun as she relates the story of two rare book dealers (both women, both devout Alcott fans) who were finally able to link lusty author “A.M. Barnard” to the paragon of family devotion, Louisa May Alcott.
When Bronson Alcott encouraged Louisa to write a story based on her own childhood, Louisa was slowly recovering from typhoid contracted while nursing Union soldiers. Little Women was a publishing phenomenon. Louisa May Alcott’s only literary rival at the time — in popularity and in book sales — was Mark Twain.
At the height of her literary popularity, nearly 50 years old and in declining health, Louisa set aside writing to raise the infant daughter of her sister, May, who had died in childbirth. You can hear the excitement in Reisen’s voice as she relates her own part in discovering and publicizing notes from the 1976 interviews with May’s daughter Lulu, the last remaining person alive who had known Louisa May Alcott. The interview with 96-year-old Lulu Nieriker Rassim had been only partially written about, had never published, and had gone missing after the death of author and Alcott scholar Madelon Bedell. In a moment of serendipity, a letter dropped from a used copy of Bedell’s book that Reisen was perusing. The paper contained clues that led to the recovery of the interview notes, which are now joyfully shared with Reisen’s listeners. —Carole Chouinard
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They were confidantes to British prime ministers, poets, writers, and artists, their lives entwined with the most celebrated and scandalous figures of the day, from Oscar Wilde to Henry James. They were the lovers of great men - or men of great prominence... They lived in a world of luxurious excess, a world of splendor at 44 Belgrave Square and later at the even more vast Clouds, the exquisite Wiltshire house on 4,000 acres, the "house of the age", designed in 1876 by the visionary architect Philip Webb - the model for Henry James' The Spoils of Poynton.
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SLOW START BUT STICK WITH THIS ONE
- By The Louligan on 01-22-19
By: Claudia Renton
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Louisa
- The Extraordinary Life of Mrs. Adams
- By: Louisa Thomas
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 15 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Born in London to an American father and a British mother on the eve of the Revolutionary War, Louisa Catherine Johnson was raised in circumstances very different from the New England upbringing of future president John Quincy Adams, whose life had been dedicated to public service from the earliest age. And yet John Quincy fell in love with her almost despite himself. Their often tempestuous but deeply close marriage lasted half a century.
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Insightful
- By Jean on 05-18-16
By: Louisa Thomas
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Melville in Love
- The Secret Life of Herman Melville and the Muse of Moby-Dick
- By: Michael Shelden
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Herman Melville's epic novel, Moby-Dick, was a spectacular failure when it was published in 1851, effectively ending its author's rise to literary fame. Because he was neglected by academics for so long, and because he made little effort to preserve his legacy, we know very little about Melville, and even less about what he called his "wicked book". Scholars still puzzle over what drove Melville to invent Captain Ahab's mad pursuit of the great white whale.
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intriguing
- By Jean on 06-18-16
By: Michael Shelden
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The Prince and the Pauper
- By: Mark Twain
- Narrated by: Steve West
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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They look alike, but they live in very different worlds. Tom Canty, impoverished and abused by his father, is fascinated with royalty. Edward Tudor, heir to the throne of England, is kind and generous but wants to run free and play in the river - just once. How insubstantial their differences truly are becomes clear when a chance encounter leads to an exchange of clothing - and roles. The pauper finds himself caught up in the pomp and folly of the royal court, and the prince wanders horror-stricken through the lower strata of English society.
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Wonderful author, terrific narrator, splendid book
- By Rahni on 10-01-17
By: Mark Twain
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Effie
- The Passionate Lives of Effie Gray, John Ruskin and John Everett Millais
- By: Suzanne Fagence Cooper
- Narrated by: Sophie Ward
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Effie Gray, a beautiful and intelligent young socialite, rattled the foundations of England's Victorian age. Married at 19 to John Ruskin, the leading art critic of the time, she found herself trapped in a loveless, union after Ruskin rejected her on their wedding night. She met John Everett Millais, Ruskin's protege, and fell passionately in love with him. Suzanne Fagence Cooper has gained exclusive access to Effie's previously unseen letters and diaries to tell the complete story of this scandalous love triangle.
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Fascinating Story--Victoriana
- By Cariola on 06-29-12
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Zelda Fitzgerald
- The Tragic, Meticulously Researched Biography of the Jazz Age's High Priestess
- By: Sally Cline
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 17 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Zelda Fitzgerald was the mythical American Dream Girl of the Roaring Twenties who became, in the words of her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald, "the first American flapper." Their romance transformed a symbol of glamour and spectacle of the Jazz Age. When Zelda cracked up, not long after the stock market crash of 1929, Scott remained loyal to her through a nightmare of later breakdowns and final madness.
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The Beautiful and the Bungled
- By Silverthorne on 12-08-17
By: Sally Cline
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Mark Twain
- A Life
- By: Ron Powers
- Narrated by: Ron Powers
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Abridged
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Mark Twain founded the American voice. His works are a living national treasury: taught, quoted, and reprinted more than those of any writer except Shakespeare. His awestruck contemporaries saw him as the representative figure of his times, and his influence has deeply flavored the 20th and 21st centuries.
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Buy the Book
- By W.Denis on 10-22-05
By: Ron Powers
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Eliza Hamilton
- The Extraordinary Life and Times of the Wife of Alexander Hamilton
- By: Tilar J. Mazzeo
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Fans fell in love with Eliza Hamilton - Alexander Hamilton’s devoted wife - in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s phenomenal musical Hamilton. But they don’t know her full story. A strong pioneer woman, a loving sister, a caring mother, and, in her later years, a generous philanthropist, Eliza had many sides - and this fascinating biography brings her multifaceted personality to vivid life.
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Eliza Deserves Better
- By jmn89 on 12-20-19
By: Tilar J. Mazzeo
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Labyrinths
- Emma Jung, Her Marriage to Carl, and the Early Years of Psychoanalysis
- By: Catrine Clay
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Clever and ambitious, Emma Jung yearned to study the natural sciences at the University of Zurich. But the strict rules of proper Swiss society at the beginning of the 20th century dictated that a woman of Emma's stature - one of the richest heiresses in Switzerland - travel to Paris to "finish" her education, to prepare for marriage to a suitable man. Engaged to the son of one of her father's wealthy business colleagues, Emma's conventional and predictable life was upended when she met Carl Jung.
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Carl plays center stage
- By Sparrowhawk on 12-23-16
By: Catrine Clay
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Reading My Father
- A Memoir
- By: Alexandra Styron
- Narrated by: Alexandra Styron
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Alexandra Styron's parents—the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Sophie’s Choice and his political activist wife, Rose—were, for half a century, leading players on the world’s cultural stage. Alexandra was raised under both the halo of her father’s brilliance and the long shadow of his troubled mind. Reading My Father portrays the epic sweep of an American artist’s life. It is also a tale of filial love, beautifully written with humor, compassion, and grace.
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William Styron Ranks...
- By Douglas on 12-22-13
By: Alexandra Styron
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Mark Twain: Man in White
- The Grand Adventure of His Final Years
- By: Michael Shelden
- Narrated by: Andrew Garman
- Length: 17 hrs
- Unabridged
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Pulitzer Prize finalist Michael Shelden illuminates Mark Twain’s twilight years in this brilliant account of the legendary author’s life. Drawing heavily on Twain’s own letters and journals, Mark Twain: Man in White recounts both Twain’s private family experiences and his larger-than-life public image.
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Fantastic book
- By Tad Davis on 08-23-10
By: Michael Shelden
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Jefferson's Daughters
- Three Sisters, White and Black, in a Young America
- By: Catherine Kerrison
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 17 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Thomas Jefferson had three daughters: Martha and Maria by his wife, Martha Wayles Jefferson, and Harriet by his slave Sally Hemings. Although the three women shared a father, the similarities end there. Martha and Maria received a fine convent school education while they lived with their father during his diplomatic posting in Paris. Once they returned home, however, the sisters found their options limited by the laws and customs of early America. Harriet Hemings followed a different path. She escaped slavery — apparently with the assistance of Jefferson himself.
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Don't waste money on this book.
- By Amazon Customer on 02-17-18
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Pearl Buck in China
- Journey to The Good Earth
- By: Hilary Spurling
- Narrated by: Hilary Spurling
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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The author of the much honored two-volume biography of Henri Matisse unearths the life and work of the Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize winner Pearl Buck, whose novels in the 1930's and 40's were the first written for a Western audience to describe ordinary life in the still secret China of the late 19th and early 20th century.
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Very good
- By M. Brandman on 06-15-10
By: Hilary Spurling
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The Sisters
- The Saga of the Mitford Family
- By: Mary S. Lovell
- Narrated by: Annie Wauters
- Length: 18 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the story of a close, loving family splintered by the violent ideologies of Europe between the wars. Jessica was a Communist; Debo became the Duchess of Devonshire; Nancy was one of the best-selling novelists of her day; the ethereally beautiful Diana was the most hated woman in England; and Unity Valkyrie, born in Swastika, Alaska, would become obsessed with Adolf Hitler.
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Great story, terrible reader
- By Victoria on 02-27-14
By: Mary S. Lovell
What listeners say about Louisa May Alcott
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Leah Johnson
- 06-17-23
The story spoke to me
I always knew I liked this lady. I felt from her books that she was sad and disappointed with her life. I am glad I know her story and will read all of her writing with this bio running around in my mind.
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- GraceAgnes
- 02-09-22
The best biography of Louisa May Alcott out there.
Harriet Reisen does a great job narrating her own book. A very intimate look at Louisa May Alcott from early childhood growing up with three sisters and parents who would became the fictional March family in her novel “Little Women.” Louisa’s family’s continual struggle with poverty is not glossed over by Harriet Reisen. The Alcotts economic problems did not end until Louisa’s successful writing career could pay the bills in her parents household. A very different story from that of the fictional March family portrayed in “Little Women.” A great read/listen.
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- Jean
- 03-07-12
Compelling Story
I knew nothing about Alcott's life before reading this book. I do remember as a child reading "Little Women" but do not remember much about it. What fascinating people she grew up knowing such men as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Hawthorne, Graham. She grew up in a time women had no rights and were very lucky to obtain any amount of education. Her Father's push to educate women was ahead of his time. Watching and helping her Mother try to support the family by sewing lead to her demand of herself to depend on no one to support her but herself and to do so by writing. It was only acceptable at that time for women to write children stories so she also wrote under a pseudonym for the pulp magazines. Her fight for women's right to vote and her push for an equal rights amendment was interesting. The women got the right to vote but we still do not have equal rights (Federal) still need three more state to reach the required 38.. You will enjoy this book.
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6 people found this helpful
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- h and l
- 01-10-10
interesting life, strange reader
writers really should resist the temptation to read their own work. this was one of the most uneven audio recordings i have listened to, largely because her voice changed constantly from soft and powdery to deep and gruff. and, it must be said, sometimes the technical side of it was pitiful. at times i had to listen to it through only one ear phone.
so. if, like me, you remember paying a small fortune for such a book before audibles, and you are grateful to get it at an affordable price, you will excuse the bad reading and enjoy the experience.
louisa may alcott s life is so interesting i think it would be hard to mess up a biography about her. this one is far from perfect, but it is illuminating, not only about her but about other american writers of the time, like thoreau and emerson. also, as a psychological study of a family, this book rates very high.
i never cared for her writing, did not read her as a little girl. i came across something she wrote when i was in college. it was in an original magazine from her time period, and it was so harsh i did not have a good impression of her at all.
but, having just read a bio of dorothy parker, i wanted another woman writer to read about, and this was what i chose, out of very slim pickings. i am glad i did. her life had so many layers, so much happened and yet so much never happened. i will listen to it again, and will never forget it. her s was a distinctively american life, and very much the life of a woman who was probably a genius but never allowed to live that out. the biography does a good job of uncovering why.
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13 people found this helpful
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- Katrina
- 08-05-22
Great story, sometimes difficult listen
5 star recommendation for this biography of LMA in physical form.
In audio form, just know that sometimes the narrator’s cadence got tedious, often sounding more similar to a news broadcaster than rich narrator. While I sympathize with the author’s passion and thus ownership over her story - assuming those were leading causes for self-narration - I did wish multiple times during my listen for a more skilled narrator to add their craft’s nuance and flavor to the audio experience. That being said, I’m still grateful for an audio version to listen to at work. I now know, admire, and cherish LMA far more than I previously did.
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- Nevada O. Buckley
- 04-27-24
delighted to learn more about LMA, and from so many different perspectives via the journals of all who were near to her.
loved it loved it loved it. I wish more than ever now to be able to speak to her in person today
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1 person found this helpful
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- Jarek Ostrowski
- 04-02-24
Louisa May Alcott
Discovered the woman behind one of her most famous book Little women and made me love her even more. She was a caring social activist "for reforms of all kinds"
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- Kathleen
- 08-01-10
Compelling look at an interesting life
I disagree with the first reviewer. The audio isn't perfect, but it isn't bad. I didn't find it distracting at all. The story Ms. Reisen tells is fascinating, and I really enjoyed the time I spent listening to this book. Louisa and her family led such unusual lives, and I've come away from this book with a new appreciation for her work.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Debra
- 08-09-10
Truly Enjoyable
Before listening to this bio, I didn't know much about L.M. Alcott besides her major novels and some side comments from my mother (former English teacher). Reisen does an excellent job tying together contemporary resources, historical perspectives and presenting them beautifully. Her reading style is not dry and academic but full of her enthusiasm for her subject. I really enjoyed this book and the narrator.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Mollie
- 10-29-12
Solid book
Would you consider the audio edition of Louisa May Alcott to be better than the print version?
I didn't read the print edition, so I cannot answer this question.
Who was your favorite character and why?
It's biography, so...
What three words best describe Harriet Reisen’s voice?
a little dull
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Not possible! It took several times. Reisen's voice will lull you to sleep.
Any additional comments?
The book is solid, and the information is sound, which is why I got it. However, Reisen would probably serve her audience better by sticking to the writing part.
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2 people found this helpful