Rec: "The Lost Stories of Louisa May Alcott"

[cinaed]

So I did not know until I stumbled upon this collection of short stories that Louisa May Alcott, while writing books like Little Women, was also secretly writing glorious Gothic short stories and novels under a pen name! 

But anyway, I just sat down and read all of The Lost Stories of Louisa May Alcott, which contains nine Gothic stories Alcott wrote. Most of them are pretty great. I cannot decide which is my favorite! 

Is it the one where the guy is super into this woman he just met until he learns that a) the lovely lady is in fact a boy of sixteen who’s run away from school and b) is totally his nephew? THAT’S NOT AWKWARD.

Or is it the tragic romance which boils down to “Let me tell you alllll about how Russia is the worst and Poland is the best, okay? Sit down and let me tell you about this because it’s important. Poland = awesome amazing people. Russia = assholes.” 

Comments

[skygiants]

I NEED TO READ THESE STORIES

[cinaed]

There's even one where I was going "oh no, Alcott is writing Indian characters, is this going to be racist in an 1860 way?" and then it actually pleasantly surprised me! But yes, if you can find the collection, I recommend them.

There are of course a lot of women dying, but there are also ones where women go "nah" at their fates and fight against it, and it's great!