Louisa May Alcott Unmasked: Collected Thrillers

One of America’s most adored juvenile fiction writers, Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) also penned anonymous and pseudonymous sensation stories for popular magazines. Her spellbinding tales of intrigue and suspense, violence and evil, jealousy and revenge, were uncovered by the detective work of Madeleine Stern and others, who scrutinized published and unpublished sources for clues to Alcott’s secret literary life.
Now Alcott’s known thrillers are available for the first time in a single volume. Originally published between 1863 and 1870, these twenty-nine tales illuminate Alcott’s versatility as a writer and her storytelling talents. The sensation stories, which feature a succession of powerful and passionate heroines, also reveal Alcott’s feminist convictions.
Alcott wrote for various magazines geared toward different groups of readers, and her works were tailored to conform to the standards and perceived interests of each audience. Serials carried by Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, with its mass readership, were sensational shockers that contained violent themes of narcotics addiction and brutal murder, while the stories for Frank Leslie’s Lady’s Magazine required genteel overtones and less violent plots. The toned-down sensationalism, however, did not preclude feminist heroines, or the titillation of sexual exchanges and the excitement of sexual power struggles.
All the tales in Louisa May Alcott Unmasked are engaging potboilers with vivid characters, exotic backdrops, and complex plots that will beguile today’s readers.