Louisa May Alcott and the Textual Child A Critical Theory Approach

This book examines constructions of childhood in the works of Louisa May Alcott. While Little Women continues to gain popular and critical attention, Alcott’s wider works for children have largely been consigned to history. This book therefore investigates Alcott’s lesser-known children’s texts to reconsider critical assumptions about childhood in her works and in literature more widely. Kristina West investigates the trend towards reading Alcott’s life into her works; readings of gender and sexuality, race, disability, and class; the sentimental domestic; portrayals of Transcendentalism and American education; and adaptations of these works. Analyzing Alcott as a writer for twenty-first-century children, West considers Alcott’s place in the children’s canon and how new media and fan fiction impact readings of her works today.

Kristina West completed her PhD on constructions of childhood in the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and is an affiliated member of the Graduate Centre for International Research in Childhood: Literature, Culture, Media at the University of Reading. Her research focuses on American literature, children’s literature, and critical theory. She will soon publish her next book, Reading the Salem Witch Child.