Three Unpublished Poems

Alcott, Louisa May, 1832-1888Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 16K words
Chapters: 2

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971, and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today. Three Unpublished Poems by Louisa May Alcott. Author: Alcott, Louisa May, 1832-1888. Language: English. Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature. Release Date: Feb 28, 2009

Editor's review

This Project Gutenberg release of Three Unpublished Poems gathers three previously unpublished poems by Louisa May Alcott. Brief as they are, they offer readers familiar with Little Women a window into another side of the author's writing. Alcott is known primarily as a novelist, yet her poetry also reflects her sensitive attention to life, emotion, and moral questions. Issued as a public-domain electronic text in English with a simple editorial format, the book serves as supplementary material for studying the full range of Alcott's work and as light English-language poetry reading for literary enthusiasts in spare moments. Note that the volume contains only the three poems, with no introduction or detailed annotations; readers need a basic command of English and would benefit from some familiarity with nineteenth-century American literature. Overall, it is better suited as an entry point for further reading or textual reference than as a systematic introduction to poetry.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Literary enthusiasts who have read Little Women and wish to explore Alcott's poetry
Readers studying nineteenth-century American literature who need to consult the author's unpublished poems
English learners with basic reading ability who prefer short texts

Not a good fit for

Poetry beginners seeking detailed annotations and introductions
Readers with limited English reading ability who need a Chinese parallel text
Readers expecting a long work or systematic literary criticism

Reading tips

Read through the three poems first, then compare them with the themes of Alcott's novels to understand the emotional tone of her poetry.
Note the imagery and diction as you read, to facilitate comparison with works by American poets of the same period.
For research purposes, consult a chronology of the author's life first, then situate the poems within the phase of her creative development.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Does this book contain only three poems?

Yes. The book consists of three previously unpublished poems by Alcott and is a very short public-domain electronic text. It contains no novel or other prose works, and reading time is usually brief.

What level of English is needed to read it?

The poems are in nineteenth-century English, with wording and syntax somewhat removed from modern English. A college-level reading ability is recommended, or a willingness to read closely sentence by sentence with a dictionary; otherwise comprehension will be difficult.

Is this book suitable for research on Alcott?

It can be used as supplementary material to help understand one aspect of the author's poetry. However, because it lacks annotations and background introduction, it should be used alongside other biographies and literary histories and is not suitable as a sole basis for research.

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About the author

Alcott, Louisa May, 1832-1888 Author

Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888) was an American writer best known for Little Women. The novel follows the four March sisters as they grow up, portraying their joys and sorrows in family life and their individual aspirations; its warm, plain style and finely drawn characters won wide readership, and it became a classic of American children's literature and family fiction. Her writing often drew on her own family experience and surrounding life. Besides Little Women, she wrote works such as Little Men, which continue her attention to the growth and education of children and young people. The collection here holds 54 of her works, including various editions and foreign-language translations of Little Women and a compilation of her life, letters, and journals, showing how widely her work has circulated. Public information is limited, so details of her life are not elaborated here.