“Alcott’s Hidden Critics:” An International Sleuthing Project
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BY SUSAN BAILEY AND LORRAINE TOSIELLO
What was your response to Little Women? Did you write it down? Is there a record from your grandmothers, mothers, or aunts? So many readers remember their first impressions of the iconic tale, documenting that experience in diaries, letters, or school projects. Independent scholars Susan Bailey and Lorraine Tosiello have set out to collect these responses for posterity.
Preserving the readers’ responses Sadly, Alcott destroyed most of the fan mail that reached Orchard House. While in Europe in 1870, she wrote to her family, “Don’t send me any more letters from so cracked girls.”1 In Jo’s Boys, Jo comments, “Emerson and Whittier put these things in the waste-paper basket and...I will follow suit.”2 Alcott scholar Anne Boyd Rioux noted that, with a few exceptions, “...virtually none of her other fan letters survive.”3 Mindful of this loss, Bailey and Tosiello intend to preserve the ongoing legacy of readers’ responses. This project’s genesis occurred to Tosiello when she found the book report about Rose in Bloom she had authored at age ten. She wondered, “How many other such diaries, letters, and school projects exist, and how could we find them? Such material would be valuable for scholars and teachers, shedding new light on the book’s impact over its 150-year history.” Creating a movement “Any reader can be a ‘Hidden Critic,’” Bailey explained. “If you jotted down your annoyance with Amy in your journal or corresponded with a friend about Beth’s death, we want to know about it.” “We hope to motivate a movement to collect and preserve these remembrances,”
Tosiello said. “We want to have people ransacking their attics, finding those family archives. We encourage them to pass on the call through social media to invite other fans to join in a fun and significant project. Teachers and librarians could encourage readers to send in their findings.” Archiving the 1926 publication of Little Women with illustrations by Jessie Wilcox ©Susan Bailey responses The entries will how to fill out the documentation form be cataloged and stored on the website and submit copies of their original of the Louisa May Alcott Society. Society notations about Little Women. Write to president Gregory Eiselein thinks the call louisamayalcottismypassion@gmail.com for documentation of readers’ responses to with any questions. “We are enthusiastic Little Women is an “exciting project.” The about what we will find,” says Tosiello. LMA Society “would like to host the online ——————————————————————————— version of this project on the emerging Susan Bailey is the author of two books Alcott Archives section of the society (Louisa May Alcott: Illuminated by The website,” he says. Jan Turnquist, Executive Message and River of Grace) and webmaster Director of Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard for the Louisa May Alcott is My Passion blog House, agrees. “I am excited about this at louisamayalcottismypassion.com. She is project and Orchard House partnering.” a correspondent for the Catholic Free Press Capturing the enthusiasm of the many and contributes regularly to BookTrib.com. visitors to the Alcott homestead will be Lorraine Tosiello is a practicing physician essential to a full survey of “Hidden Critics.” and a lifelong Louisa May Alcott fan. Her novel, Only Gossip Prospers, portrays Alcott “Hidden Critics” instructions in New York City in 1875. Her second Alcott Readers can visit louisamayalcott related novel, The Bee and the Fly, will be ismypassion.com for instructions on published in 2022.
Reisen, Harriet, Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women. NY: Henry Holt and Company 2009, 232. 2 Alcott, Louisa, Jo’s Boys, and How They Turned Out. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1886, 50. 3 Rioux, Anne Boyd, Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why it Still Matters. NY: W. W. Norton, 2018, 69. 1
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