Little Women

About the Novel

Essential Vocabulary

Tasks

Writing at the Wayside

While living at "Hillside,” Louisa, thrilled at getting her own room for the first time, got down to the business of writing. Her early literary efforts were drawn from "real imagination", not real life - fairy tales, like "The Frost King." that she told to Ralph Waldo Emerson's daughter, Ellen; fanciful stories about places she had never been ("The Rival Painters - A Tale of Rome.”) and chilling plays filled with loathsome villains and damsels in distress, written with her sister, Anna, and performed by the four girls.

From these youthful literary efforts came her first published book, “ Flower Fables” (1855), dedicated to Ellen Emerson and her first I published story ("The Rival Painters") in 1852.

Her best known works from the Hillside yearsstill live on the pages of “ Little Women”, providing some of its most endearing and entertaining scenes. While the plays, including "Norna; Or, The Witch's Curse," "Captive of Castile: Or, The Moorish Maiden's Vow," and "The Unloved Wife; Or, Woman's Faith" were products of youthful imagination, the performances of the "Little Women" in the book recaptured fond memories of plays created and staged at Hillside.

You can imagine as you tour The Wayside and stroll the grounds some of the activities that filled the Alcott sisters' days - playacting Louisa's "lurid tales" in the barn, climbing the colonial staircase and the hill outside during a game of "Pilgrim's Progress," borrowing books from the Emerson's library, walking to Walden Pond, doing household chores, or enjoying quiet moments together.

Comment on the following:

“In those days the prophets were not honored in their own land, and Concord had not discovered her men. It was a sort of refuge for reformers of all sorts whom the good natives regarded as lunatics, harmless but amusing.”

instill - исподволь внушать; вселять (надежду, страх и т. п.; in, into; with)

Parents try to instill in (to) their children the best of moral principles. —

Родители пытаются внушить детям лучшие моральные принципы.

dire - а) страшный, ужасный, жуткий; внушающий ужас; предвещающий

несчастье Syn: dreadful, evil

неприятный, противный, мерзкий / dire entity/

entity - суть, существо, сущность

“Little Women” is a novel by Louisa May Alcott published on September 30, 1868, concerning the lives and loves of four sisters growing up during the American Civil War. It was based on Alcott's own experiences as a child in Concord. Massachusetts. After much demand, Louisa May Alcott wrote a sequel, “ Good Wives”, which was published in 1 869 and is often published together with “ Little Women” as if it were a single work. “ Good Wives” picks up three years after the events in the last chapter of “Little Women” ("Aunt March Settles The Question"), and includes characters and events often felt by fans to be essential to the “ Little Women” story.

Alcott later wrote “ Little Men” and “ Jo's Boys, (which followed the lives of the girls' children) and “ An Old Fashioned Girl”, “Rose in Bloom” and “How They Turned Out”.

Дата добавления: 2014-12-27