The Borders of Ethical, Erotic, and Artistic Possibilities in "Little Women"

Abstract

1 range of recent writing on Alcott is impressive, and the following is by no means an exhaustive bibliography: Nina Auerbach, Women, in Communities of Women: An Idea in Fiction, ed. Nina Auerbach (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978), 55-75; Jeanne Bedell, Necessary Mask: Sensation Fiction of Louisa May Publications of the Missouri Philological Association, Warrensbury, Mo., no. 5 (1980), 8-14; Madelon Bedell, Beneath the Surface: Power and Passion in Little Women, in Critical Essays on Louisa May Alcott, ed. Madeleine Ster (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1984), 145-50; Brigid Brophy, Sentimentality and Louisa May in Stem, ed., Critical Essays, 93-96; Mary Cadogan, 'Sweet, If Somewhat Tomboyish': British Response to Louisa May in Stem, ed., Critical Essays, 275-79; Ann Douglas, Mysteries of Louisa May New York Review of Books 25 (September 28, 1978): 60-63; Sarah Elbert, A Hunger for Home: Louisa May Alcott and Little Women (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984); Judith Fetterley, Impersonating Little Women: Radicalism of Alcott's Behind a Mask, Women's Studies 10, no. 1 (1983): 1-14, and Women: Alcott's Civil War, in Stem, ed., Critical Essays, 140-43; Carol Gay, The Philosopher and His Daughter: Amos Bronson Alcott and Louisa, Essays in Literature 2, no. 2 (Fall 1975): 181-91; Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, Madwoman in the Attic: Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1979); Alfred Habegger, Precious Incest: First Novels by Louisa May Alcott and Henry James, Massachusetts Review 26, nos. 2-3 (Summer-Autumn 1985): 232-62; Karen Halttunen, The Domestic Drama of Louisa May Feminist Studies 10, no. 2 (Summer 1984):