La saga des filles du docteur March a façonné l'imaginaire de générations de jeunes lectrices, mais la vie de son autrice est quant à elle restée dans l'ombre. Militantisme féministe et abolitionniste, remise en cause de l'institution du mariage, soif d'émancipation : les lettres de Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) - inédites en français - racontent la parabole rocambolesque d'une écrivaine qui sut se frayer un chemin dans un monde d'hommes.

Nos têtes audacieuses - Lettres de la créatrice des sœurs March

Generations of readers young and old, male and female, have fallen in love with the March sisters of Louisa May Alcott's most popular and enduring novel, Little Women. Here are talented tomboy and author-to-be Jo, tragically frail Beth, beautiful Meg, and romantic, spoiled Amy, united in their devotion to each other and their struggles to survive in New England during the Civil War.

It is no secret that Alcott based Little Women on her own early life. While her father, the freethinking reformer and abolitionist Bronson Alcott, hobnobbed with such eminent male authors as Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne, Louisa supported herself and her sisters with "woman's work, " including sewing, doing laundry, and acting as a domestic servant. But she soon discovered she could make more money writing. Little Women brought her lasting fame and fortune, and far from being the "girl's book" her publisher requested, it explores such timeless themes as love and death, war and peace, the conflict between personal ambition and family responsibilities, and the clash of cultures between Europe and America.

Little Women

In un'aristocratica famiglia inglese fa il suo ingresso Jean Muir, istitutrice dall'aria ingenua, ma che nasconde un fine malvagio. La ragazza è gentile con tutti, ma talvolta la sua lingua biforcuta scatta incontrollabile, lanciando misteriosi e inquietanti avvertimenti. Poco alla volta, grazie ai suoi modi e alle sue qualità, l'istitutrice si guadagna la fiducia dei vari membri della famiglia. Solo allora ognuno capirà che è ormai troppo tardi per difendersi dalla trama diabolica che Jean andava tessendo alle loro spalle... Dall'acclamata autrice di Piccole donne un ingegnoso romanzo dalle atmosfere gotiche e dagli intrecci cupi. Alcott, celatasi per anni dietro lo pseudonimo A. M. Barnard, ha affidato ai suoi personaggi le rivendicazioni di tante donne in età vittoriana: ed ecco che dietro la maschera dell'arrivista, la protagonista Jean Muir non può che risultare simpatica, metafora di una sfacciata lotta contro il perbenismo e contro una società repressiva. La vendetta si consuma nella pratica dell'umiliazione sottile rivolta alla borghesia del tempo, che lentamente vediamo sgretolarsi e ridicolizzarsi sotto la penna arguta della scrittrice e grazie alla nuova traduzione di Donatella Rizzati.

Dietro la maschera

Little Women 

Little Men 

Jo's Boys 

An Old-Fashioned Girl 

Eight Cousins

"Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents, " grumbled Jo, lying on the rug. 

"It's so dreadful to be poor!" sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress. 

"I don't think it's fair for some girls to have plenty of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all, " added little Amy, with an injured sniff. 

"We've got Father and Mother, and each other, " said Beth contentedly from her corner. 

The four young faces on which the firelight shone brightened at the cheerful words, but darkened again as Jo said sadly, "We haven't got Father, and shall not have him for a long time." She didn't say "perhaps never, " but each silently added it, thinking of Father far away, where the fighting was.

Louisa May Alcott Collection

THE summer moon shone brightly down upon the sleeping earth, while far away from mortal eyes danced the Fairy folk. Fire-flies hung in bright clusters on the dewy leaves, that waved in the cool night-wind; and the flowers stood gazing, in very wonder, at the little Elves, who lay among the fern-leaves, swung in the vine-boughs, sailed on the lake in lily cups, or danced on the mossy ground, to the music of the hare-bells, who rung out their merriest peal in honor of the night.

Under the shade of a wild rose sat the Queen and her little Maids of Honor, beside the silvery mushroom where the feast was spread.

"Now, my friends, " said she, "to while away the time till the bright moon goes down, let us each tell a tale, or relate what we have done or learned this day. I will begin with you, Sunny Lock, " added she, turning to a lovely little Elf, who lay among the fragrant leaves of a primrose.

With a gay smile, "Sunny Lock" began her story.

"As I was painting the bright petals of a blue bell, it told me this tale."

Flower Fables

On est en Amérique, en pleine guerre de Sécession. Le docteur March est au front et sa petite famille doit survivre. Heureusement, les quatre soeurs March et leur mère forment un clan très uni qui affronte l'adversité avec courage et bonne humeur malgré tout.

Les quatre filles du docteur March

On est en Amérique, en pleine guerre de Sécession. Le docteur March est au front et sa petite famille doit survivre. Heureusement, les quatre sœurs March et leur mère forment un clan très uni qui affronte l'adversité avec courage et bonne humeur malgré tout.

Les Quatre Filles du docteur March

Louisa May Alcott (1832 - 1888) was an American novelist best known as author of the novel Little Women, Good Wives and the sequels Little Men and Jo's Boys. The first part of Little Women: or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy (1868), is a semi-autobiographical account of her childhood with her sisters in Concord, Massachusetts. Part two, or Part Second, also known as Good Wives (1869), followed the March sisters into adulthood and their respective marriages. Little Men (1871) detailed Jo's life at the Plumfield School that she founded with her husband Professor Bhaer at the conclusion of Part Two of Little Women. And Jo's Boys (1886) completed the "March Family Saga". Alcott made women's rights integral to her stories, and her fiction became her "most important feminist contribution" - even considering all the efforts Alcott made to help facilitate women's rights during her lifetime.

Nos têtes audacieuses - Lettres de la créatrice des sœurs March

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