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Before she wrote *Little Women* Louisa May Alcott published many, many stories and novelettes as A.M. Barnard, all ‘blood and thunder’ novels or melodramas or gothics.
She wrote to Alf Whitman (a source for Laurie): ‘I intend to illuminate the Ledger with a blood & thunder tale as they are easy to ‘compoze’ & are better paid tha moral & elaborate works of Shakespeare so dont be shocked if I send you a paper containing a picture of Indians, pirates, wolves, bears & distressed damesels in a grand tableau over a title like ‘The Maniac Bride’ or ‘The Bath of Blood A Thrilling Tale of Passion’.
This is actually a pretty good description of the stories, except that in the two I read there are no distressed maidens. On the contrary, Jean Muir in ‘The Mask’ appears to be a demure, nineteen year old governess but is actually a thirty year old divorced actress who deceives everyone, compels every man in the house to fall in love with her, and triumphantly marries the head of the family.
Pauline, of said passion and punishment, is a firey woman who eventually, though not entirely intentionally, became a murderer. She is introduced with the following, amazing lines:
‘To and fro, like a wild creature in its cage, paced that handsome woman, with bent head, locked hands and restless steps. Some mental storm, swift and sudden as a tempest of the tropics, had swept over her and left its marks behind. As if in anger at the beauty now proved powerless, all ornaments had been flung aay, yet still shone undimmed and fillerd her with a passionate regret. A jewel glittered at her feet, leaving the lace rent to shreds on the indignant bosom that had worn it; the wreaths of hair that had crowned her with a woman’s most womanly adornment fell disordered upon shoulders that gleamed the fairer for teh scarlet of the pomegranate flowers clinging to the bright meshes that had imprisoned them an hour ago; and over the face, once so affluent in youthful bloom, a stern pallor had fallen like a blight, for pride was slowly conquering passion and despair had murdered hope.’
I really enjoyed her melodramas, though of course I am pleased that she gave up that genre once she found/invented a much better paying one.
She wrote to Alf Whitman (a source for Laurie): ‘I intend to illuminate the Ledger with a blood & thunder tale as they are easy to ‘compoze’ & are better paid tha moral & elaborate works of Shakespeare so dont be shocked if I send you a paper containing a picture of Indians, pirates, wolves, bears & distressed damesels in a grand tableau over a title like ‘The Maniac Bride’ or ‘The Bath of Blood A Thrilling Tale of Passion’.
This is actually a pretty good description of the stories, except that in the two I read there are no distressed maidens. On the contrary, Jean Muir in ‘The Mask’ appears to be a demure, nineteen year old governess but is actually a thirty year old divorced actress who deceives everyone, compels every man in the house to fall in love with her, and triumphantly marries the head of the family.
Pauline, of said passion and punishment, is a firey woman who eventually, though not entirely intentionally, became a murderer. She is introduced with the following, amazing lines:
‘To and fro, like a wild creature in its cage, paced that handsome woman, with bent head, locked hands and restless steps. Some mental storm, swift and sudden as a tempest of the tropics, had swept over her and left its marks behind. As if in anger at the beauty now proved powerless, all ornaments had been flung aay, yet still shone undimmed and fillerd her with a passionate regret. A jewel glittered at her feet, leaving the lace rent to shreds on the indignant bosom that had worn it; the wreaths of hair that had crowned her with a woman’s most womanly adornment fell disordered upon shoulders that gleamed the fairer for teh scarlet of the pomegranate flowers clinging to the bright meshes that had imprisoned them an hour ago; and over the face, once so affluent in youthful bloom, a stern pallor had fallen like a blight, for pride was slowly conquering passion and despair had murdered hope.’
I really enjoyed her melodramas, though of course I am pleased that she gave up that genre once she found/invented a much better paying one.
