Louisa May Alcott's Work: A Story of Experience (1873) is a semi-autobiographical novel that explores her personal conflicts as a woman and the sufferings and struggles of her contemporaries during the time of the American Civil War. The story concerns a young woman who is on a quest for self-fulfillment. She works hard to support herself, and be a model for other working women. Alcott stresses feminist independence, social justice, and moral.
Work: a Story of Experience
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About the Author
Louisa May Alcott was both an abolitionist and a feminist. She is best known for Little Women (1868), a semiautobiographical account of her childhood years with her sisters in Concord, Massachusetts. Alcott, unlike Jo, never married: ""...because I have fallen in love with so many pretty girls and never once the least bit with any man."" She was an advocate of women's suffrage and was the first woman to register to vote in Concord, Massachusetts.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is an enjoyable and moderately gripping read, set in the middle of the nineteenth century before and during the American Civil War. It narrates the adventures of Christie Devon, a girl who decides to leave home and become self-supporting. She is less successful in finding suitable work than she had hoped, but does obtain a succession of jobs - companion, actress (!), governess, seamstress, and so on. Halfway through the book she reaches a personal crisis and discovers true religious faith. The second half of the book is very different from the first, and I found it less successful -not because of the religious aspect, but because of the abrupt change of pace, and because of one particularly ludicrous coincidence (oh well, this is a nineteenth-century novel, I suppose!). I was also disappointed by the way that the story ultimately ended, although it was perhaps inevitable given the historical background (and the 'Daisy' / 'Melbourne House' series by Susan Warner / Elizabeth Wetherell ends very similarly). The most compelling parts of the book I found to be those which focused on everyday domestic detail, and which were evidently based on the author's experience (quite a lot of this book is apparently autobiographical). These are the parts which linger in the memory, long after the more melodramatic passages have been forgotten ... Ultimately this is a serious and worthwhile novel, as well as a vehicle for the expression of Louisa Alcott's feminist and abolitionist views. I'd recommend it, with the proviso that it's a very different beast from 'Little Women' (though actually I found it more enjoyable than the sequels to that book).
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.3 out of 5 stars
6 reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
This book is pro-women and pro-abolition.
30 July 2004
By amazon3131
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
I ran across this book recently and enjoyed reading it. It is more modern than most Alcott books in one respect: the heroine exactly doesn't "get married and live happily ever after."
Like many of the books at the time, the heroine is an orphan. At the age of 21, she leaves her aunt and uncle to make her fortune in the world -- and, she hopes, her happiness, since marrying a farmer she doesn't love "just to get a living" doesn't seem either honest or wise to her.
The book covers almost twenty years in New England -- about ten years before the Civil War through about five years afterwards. The heroine is energetic, intelligent, determined, and capable. And she WORKS! She is always looking for a way to be useful, to pull her own weight, and to help others. The book chronicles her path through a series of jobs and the emotional, physical, and spiritual ups and downs that come with them.
What is most amazing is that the heroine meets a fugitive slave on her first job and treats her as an equal. Unlike "some of the other girls," she doesn't refuse the job simply because the cook is black.
The touching ending scene, in which a diverse group of women pledge to make a better world for themselves (and perhaps to get the right to vote), includes many of the friends she has encountered along the way, "black and white, rich and poor."
However, this beautiful example -- and for the time, this very daring example of inter-racial cooperation -- is marred somewhat by an unaccountable bigotry against the Irish. The anti-Irish comments are all the more jarring because they are completely gratuitous; they have no bearing on plot or character development.
The best that can be said about this failing is that perhaps the author was unconscious of her bigotry, and that at least the Irish are not mentioned often, although every mention is uniformly disparaging.
Like many of the books at the time, the heroine is an orphan. At the age of 21, she leaves her aunt and uncle to make her fortune in the world -- and, she hopes, her happiness, since marrying a farmer she doesn't love "just to get a living" doesn't seem either honest or wise to her.
The book covers almost twenty years in New England -- about ten years before the Civil War through about five years afterwards. The heroine is energetic, intelligent, determined, and capable. And she WORKS! She is always looking for a way to be useful, to pull her own weight, and to help others. The book chronicles her path through a series of jobs and the emotional, physical, and spiritual ups and downs that come with them.
What is most amazing is that the heroine meets a fugitive slave on her first job and treats her as an equal. Unlike "some of the other girls," she doesn't refuse the job simply because the cook is black.
The touching ending scene, in which a diverse group of women pledge to make a better world for themselves (and perhaps to get the right to vote), includes many of the friends she has encountered along the way, "black and white, rich and poor."
However, this beautiful example -- and for the time, this very daring example of inter-racial cooperation -- is marred somewhat by an unaccountable bigotry against the Irish. The anti-Irish comments are all the more jarring because they are completely gratuitous; they have no bearing on plot or character development.
The best that can be said about this failing is that perhaps the author was unconscious of her bigotry, and that at least the Irish are not mentioned often, although every mention is uniformly disparaging.
7 of 11 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
An entertaining criticism of conditions for working girls ..
2 Nov 2000
By C. A. Lehman
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
If you've read and reread all of Louisa May Alcott's books, and loved her portrayals of brave girls trying to make their way in a harsh world, you must read this "lost" novel, "Work." It is well-written, engaging and humorous, very much in the same style as her other novels for girls, yet with more of a depth of maturity to her characters. If you've read "An Old Fashioned Girl" you will see a lot of "Polly" in the working girls portrayed in this novel. Read it and rejoice in this "new" Alcott novel!
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Kitsch: too many too good people
7 Feb 2008
By A reader
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I like Alcott's novels, but this was too much for me. All characters come out on top, nobody is really bad, and certainly nobody stays bad, everybody is constantly striving to become a saint and overcome any fault they might have. I just couldn't relate to the characters, they were just above and beyond normal human people. I actually found it depressing instead of inspiring. Her other books have some humor and often even sarcasm in them, which is sadly missing here till the very last chapter. The humor has always outbalanced the moralistic streak for me, but here I just felt stuck with a thinly veiled moralistic story, which often glided into pure kitsch. Also I felt I had read many of the elements in her other stories and they were just newly arranged and a little bit redecorated. The story could have done with some serious editing before its publication, as some of the chapters are interesting but are overshadowed by kitsch chapters.
I'm aware that a book from this time will be heavy on morals, try to uplift and inspire improvment in the reader, which I usually don't mind, but in this story it just didn't work for me, it felt to forced. "An old-fashioned Girl" is very similar, but is much more engaging and entertaining and inspires laughs along with the tears.
Just a note on this edition, it is extremly badly edited. There are a great many spelling mistakes which often completely distort the sense like "Clown" instead of "Down" and others. But the most annoying one is that the character Philip Fletcher becomes again and again Mr. Pletcher.
I'm aware that a book from this time will be heavy on morals, try to uplift and inspire improvment in the reader, which I usually don't mind, but in this story it just didn't work for me, it felt to forced. "An old-fashioned Girl" is very similar, but is much more engaging and entertaining and inspires laughs along with the tears.
Just a note on this edition, it is extremly badly edited. There are a great many spelling mistakes which often completely distort the sense like "Clown" instead of "Down" and others. But the most annoying one is that the character Philip Fletcher becomes again and again Mr. Pletcher.
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3.3 out of 5 stars
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