In her journals, in 1852, Louisa May Alcott made a note to herself: "Make a resolution to read fewer novels, and those only of the best."
This is her list of books that she liked-
Carlyle's French Revolution, and his Critical and Miscellaneous Essays
On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (also Carlyle)
Goethe's Poems, Plays and novels
Plutarch's Lives
Madame Guyon
John Milton's Paradise Lost and Comus
Schiller's Plays
Madame de Staël - (author and friend of Goethe's)
Bettine
Louis XIV
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Hypatia by Charles Kingsley
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Emerson's Poems
Oh yay! Thank you! She liked Jane Eyre. Of course she did. ;o)
ReplyDeleteKatie
I would have thought she liked The Heir of Redclyffe, since she had Jo crying over it up on the attic. Maybe Jo's taste, not hers?
ReplyDeleteThat is quite a list.
ReplyDelete