A Double Life
Alcott Louisa May
A DOUBLE LIFE
The Selected Letters of
Louisa May Alcott
With an Introduction by
Madeleine B. Stern
Joel Myerson and Daniel Shealy, Editors;
Madeleine B. Stern, Associate Editor
NEWLY DISCOVERED THRI LLERS
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
MADELEINE B. STERN
Madeleine B. Stern, Editor
Joel Myerson and Daniel Shealy, Associate Editors
LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY • BOSTON • TORONTO
TEXT COMPILATION COPYRIGHT © 1988 BY MADELEINE B. STERN, JOEL MYERSON, AND DANIEL SHEALY
INTRODUCTION COPYRIGHT © 1988 BY MADELEINE B.
STERN
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY ELECTRONIC OR MECHANICAL MEANS, INCLUDING INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS, WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER, EXCEPT BY A REVIEWER, WHO MAY QUOTE BRIEF PASSAGES IN A REVIEW.
FIRST EDITION
All illustrations are reprinted by permission of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts, except for the illustration appearing on p. 191, which is reproduced courtesy of the Brown University Library, Providence, Rhode Island.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Alcott, Louisa May, 1832-1888.
A double life.
1. Detective and mystery stories, American. 1. Stern, Madeleine B. 1912- II. Myerson, Joel.
III. Shelly, Daniel. IV. Title.
PS1016.S73 1988 813'. 4 87-37827
ISBN 0-316-03101-1
10 987654321
DESIGNED BY JEANNE ABBOUD
Published simultaneously in Canada
by Little, Brown & Company (Canada) Limited
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
A Note on the Texts
A Pair of Eyes; or Modern Magic
PART I
PART II
The Fate of the Forrests
PART I
PART II
PART III
A Double Tragedy. An Acors Story
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
Ariel. A Legend of the Lighthouse
PART I
PART II
PART III
Taming a Tartar
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
Acknowledgements
ALL THREE editors are grateful to the staffs of the American Antiquarian Society, Brown University Library, the New York Public Library, and the University of South Carolina Library for making available the original printings of the texts in A Double Life, and to the Houghton Library, Harvard University, and the University of Virginia Library for permission to publish material from their collections. VVe also wish to thank Armida Gilbert for her help in preparing the texts used in our edition. Joel Myerson acknowledges the support of Carol McGinnis Kay, Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of South Carolina. Daniel Shealy is grateful to G. W. Koon, Chairman of the Department of English, and Robert A. Waller, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, of Clemson University. Madeleine B. Stern acknowledges the unceasing support of her partner, Dr. Leona Rostenberg, m ho originally discovered many of Alcott’s pseudonymous works.
Introduction
BY MADELEINE B. STERN
NEVER AGAIN will you have quite the same image of this particular ‘little woman.’”1
[1.] In a Publishers Weekly reie\ oi Behind a Mask: The Uiikiiowii Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott, ed. Madeleine B. Stern (New York: William Morrow, 1975). Other quoted review's are from Los Angeles limes and Neu' York Times.
This remark, made in 1975 when the first volume of Louisa Alcott’s sensational thrillers was published, was prophetic. The picture of the exemplary spinster of Concord, Massachusetts, who had created the perennial classic Little Women was shattered for all time. With publication of her anonymous and pseudonymous page turners, an amazed public learned that America’s best-loved author of juvenile fiction had led a double literary life and that the creator of the greatest domestic novel of the New England family had also been the familiar of a world of darkness. Readers devoured her stories of madness and mind control, passionate and manipulating heroines, hashish and opium addiction. Some recalled that Jo March herself, the independent heroine of Little Women, had also written sensational stories in secret to earn money and enjoy an emotional catharsis. But most simply reveled in narratives whose themes were “deceit, sin, death,” and whose heroines were “forceful, independent, sexually demanding, and don’t do housework.” And, during the decade or so that followed, between the mid-1970s and the mid-1980s, the scholarly world, depending upon the implications of her fiction, analyzed and psychoanalyzed the author, burrowed into her biography, and occasionally changed the biography to conform with the stories.[2]
All this was fascinating, but never so fascinating as the stories themselves, which were narrated with professional skill, insight into character, and a revelation of intimacy with satanic themes. And always, to those aware of the author’s enormous productivity, there was the hope that more sensational thrillers would emerge from behind the mask of Louisa May Alcott, more stories written in secret, dispatched to a sensational newspaper, published anonymously or under a pseudonym, revolving about other macabre subjects.
That hope has been realized. Louisa Alcott’s double literary life was even more productive and varied than had been estimated, and out of her inkstand have appeared five “new” astounding tales, discovered in 1986, that can be traced to her indefatigable pen. These tales will further alter her image, give fresh food for thought to literary scholars, but above all they will enthrall an avid readership.
Louisa Alcott’s newly discovered thrillers were all published anonymously during the 1860s before she began Little Women. Why should a struggling young author hide her name from the public? Stephen King has written that “all novelists are inveterate role- plavers” and find it “fun to be someone else for a while.”[3] The novelist’s “someone else” may be nameless. Seeking money to support the Alcott family, which included her philosopher father Bronson, her beloved and long-suffering mother Abbv May, and her artist sister May, Louisa assumed the role of breads inner. She also found it “fun” to be an anonymous someone else for a while, and the someone else who was able to turn sensational stories into fifty or seventy-five dollars was a writer who dwelled among shadows, pursuing strange and exotic themes of sadomasochism, mesmerism, East Indian Thuggism. These were no themes for Concord, Massachusetts, where Alcott’s neighbors included the revered Ralph Waldo Emerson; indeed, they were no themes for her own family, especially not for her father, w ho could have conversed w ith Plato. They were themes to be embroidered in secret into melodramatic tales that were unsigned.
[2.] See, for example, Judith Fetterley, "Impersonating 'Little Women': The Radicalism of Alcott's Behind a Mask,'' Women's Studies 10 {1983): 1-14; Martha Saxton, Louisa May: A Modern Biography of Louisa May Alcott (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977)-
[3.] Stephen King, The Bachman Books (New York: New American Library, 1986), p. viii.
Because these “new” stories were all anonymous, their authorship was extremely elusive and, but for clues in unpublished journals and publisher’s correspondence, would have remained unidentified.
The first hint surfaced in an examination of the 1863 journal entries
made by Louisa Alcott, who, thanks to Bronson Alcott’s pedagogical guidance, was addicted throughout her life to journal w riting. In August 1863, having recently recuperated from a severe illness sustained when she served as an army nurse in the Giv il War, she was more aware than ever of the need for contributions to the family treasury.[4] Her account of her experience at the Union Hotel Hospital had been well received as it appeared serially in the pages of the Boston Commonwealth. But neither the serialization nor the subsequent book appearance of Hospital Sketches would add appreciably to the Alcott coffers. Sensational stories paid better. And so, in August 1863, the author of Hospital Sketches w rote tersely in her journal: “Leslie [Erank Leslie, publisher of periodicals] sent $40 for ‘A Whisper In The Dark,’ & wanted another — Sent ‘A Pair of Eyes.’”[5]
[4.] For biographical details throughout, see Madeleine B. Stern, Louisa May Alcott (Nornnn: University of Oklahoma Press, 1950, 1971, 1985).
[5.] Louisa May Alcott, unpublished journals (bv permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University), August 1863. I am indebted to my co-editors, Joel Myerson and Daniel Shealv, for transcripts of the journals.
“A Whisper in the Dark,” a fairly innocuous story of mind control, was later to he acknowledged by its author and so is recognized as part of the Alcott canon. “A Pair of Eyes” turned out to be another matter altogether — a strange, extraordinary narrative focused upon a very particular kind of mind control. Searchers after unknown Alcott thrillers could be certain, then, that in August 1863 the author had indeed sent a tale entitled “A Pair of Eyes” to Leslie. But had it been accepted? Had it ever appeared? The reader of the journals found the answer under the date of November 1863: “Received $39 from Leslie for ‘A Pair of Eyes’ not enough, but I’m glad to get even that & be done with him. Paid debts with it as usual.”[6] If the publisher Frank Leslie had paid for a story, the chances were he had published it. Another anonymous Alcott thriller now had a name and, somewhere in the pages of one of the Leslie periodicals, awaited the eye of the literary sleuth.
The Leslie correspondence — such as has survived — would supply the responses to the Alcott journal entries. In an undated letter, the editor of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper wrote to the “Dear Madam” who was Louisa May Alcott: “Mr Leslie informs me that you have a tale ready for us, and for which he has already settled with you by check. Will you be kind enough to let us have it at the earliest moment in your power.” Beneath, the author, who was becoming quite pleased with herself, jotted: “Made them pay before hand.”[7] Another sensation story might now be endowed with a title. In June 1864 Louisa supplied it, recording in her journal: “Wrote ‘The Tale Of The Forrests’ for Leslie who sent for a tale. Rubbish keeps the pot boiling.” [8] “The Fate of the Forrests” might have helped keep the Alcott pot boiling, but, as its reading would reveal, the story was not rubbish. In a way, it would turn out to be the most singular addition to the Aleott oeuvre.
[6.] Ibid., November 1863.
[7.] "Editor of F.L. 111. Newsp. to [Louisa May Alcott]" (Louisa May Alcott Collection [#6255], Manuscripts Department, University of Virginia Library). The imprinted letterhead date is New York 1863, but the letter may well have been written later. My thanks to my co-editor Daniel Shealy for transcripts of
Leslie letters. See also Daniel Shealy, "The Author-Publisher Relationships of Louisa May Alcott" (Ph.D. diss., University of South Carolina, 1985).
[8.] Louisa May Alcott, unpublished journals (by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University), June 1864.
And so a close perusal of Louisa May Alcott’s unpublished journals produced the stunning revelations. In April 1865, having announced, “Richmond taken on the 2nd Hurrah! Went to Boston & enjoyed the grand jollification,” the ex-nurse of the Union Hotel Hospital added a succinct paragraph: “Sewed, cleaned house & wrote a story for Leslie, ‘A Double Tragedy.”’[9] The very next month, the author, glorying in her double life, made the following journal entry: “after I’d done the scrubbing up I went to my pen & wrote Leslie’s second tale ‘Ariel, A Legend Of The Light-house.’”[10] The puzzling expression “second tale” would become clear as soon as the story of the lighthouse and its legend was located.
The final, and perhaps the most powerful, new discovery contained in A Double Life did not first manifest itself until December 1866. By then, Louisa had returned from her first journey abroad, where she had served as companion to a young invalid. In August she confided to her journal: “Soon fell to work on some stories for things were, as I expected, behind hand when the money-maker was away.” In December she was more specific: “Wrote ... a wild Russian story ‘laming a Tartar.’”[11] An unpublished letter in the Leslie archive embroidered Miss Alcott’s unadorned statement. On 13 June 1867, an assistant in the Frank Leslie Publishing House reported to “Miss L.M.Alcott”: “Dear Madam: Your favor of the 10th inst acknowledging the receipt of $72 for ‘Taming a Tartar’ came to hand this morning.”[12] As the Alcott bibliography expanded, Alcott prices rose. And so, the brief entries in the writer’s unpublished journals, counterbalanced by statements in the Leslie business correspondence, have yielded up fresh secrets. I he prolific author of Flower Fables, Hospital Sketches, and Moods, the future creator of Little Women, was even more prolific than had been believed. She was also, as the reader of these stories will discover, more skillful in her narrative development, more varied in her literary motifs. As her already extraordinary productivity increased, her frame of reference widened. The stories in A Double Life add still a new dimension to the image of Louisa May Alcott.
[9.] Ibid., April 1865.
[10.] Ibid., May 1865.
[11.] Ibid., August and December 1866.
[12.] "Benj. Ci. Smith for Frank Leslie to Miss L.M. Alcott, New York, 13 June 1867" (Louisa May Alcott Collection [#6255], Manuscripts Department, University of Virginia Library). Smith went on to discuss an apparent misunderstanding about "the amount paid per page. ... I was not aware that any agreement existed between you and Mr. Leslie binding him to pay $100 per story. ... To avoid difficulty in future you might mark the price on the first page of the MS."
All those stories were published anonymously, and all appeared in the pages of Frank Leslie periodicals.[13] Louisa had had dealings with the House of Leslie before the August 1863 journal entry that announced the dispatch of “A Pair of Eyes.” Actually her first known sensation tale had been submitted to a competition announced by Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, offering one hundred dollars for the best story. “Pauline’s Passion and Punishment,” a fast-paced narrative revolving about the manipulating heroine Pauline Valary, had won the prize and in January 1863 appeared in the weekly, where it was ascribed to “a lady of Massachusetts.” To most ladies and gentlemen of Massachusetts and other states of the Union in those Civil War years, Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper was a familiar journal. Indeed, Frank Leslie was a household word.[14]
[13.] For the original discovery of Alcott's anonymous and pseudonymous stories, see Leona Rostenberg, "Some Anonymous and Pseudonymous Thrillers of Louisa M. Alcott," Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 37 (2d Quarter 1943)-
[14.] For details about Leslie and his publishing empire, see Madeleine B. Stern, Purple Passage: The Life of Mrs. Frank Leslie (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1953, 1970).
Frank Leslie was also a pseudonym — a fact probably unknown to the author of “Pauline’s Passion and Punishment.” In all likelihood she never met the short, broad, black-bearded newspaperman who exuded dynamic magnetism, although she may well have seen his published likeness. Born Henry Carter in Ipswich, England, a glove manufacturer’s son, he had turned his back on the family business and early evinced the artistic propensities that would dominate his career. As Frank Leslie he pursued the skills of engraving and pictorial printing for the Illustrated London News until 1848, when he immigrated to America. By the mid-fifties he had begun to establish a place for himself in the field of
illustrated journalism. Within ten years he had become a colossus on New York’s Publishers’ Row.
The flagship of his fleet of weeklies and monthlies was Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. That weekly catered aggressively to most facets of popular taste. Murder and horror, executions and assassinations, prizefights and revolutions — every cause eelebre, every sensation, every exposure — were grist for its mill. Leslies emphasis was pictorial. His approach, since he was basically an artist, was visual. And so his weekly ran just enough text to float the pictures that reanimated contemporary history (especially its gorier aspects) for the American household. In single woodcuts or in huge double-page engravings, the Illustrated Newspaper reproduced for its vast readership authentic Civil War battle scenes, volcanoes and earthquakes, private scandals and public revelations. In addition, it ran the illustrated serials that lured the old from the fireside and the young from their play — serials that appeared anonymously under such titles as “A Pair of Eyes,” “The Fate of the Forrests,” and “Taming a Tartar.”
The remaining two thrillers in A Double Life were dispatched to yet another Leslie journal. Frank Leslie's Chimney Corner was planned, started, and edited by the femme fatale Miriam Squier, apex of a melodramatic triangle, soon to become the w ife of Frank Leslie. This fascinating beauty was also an astute editor, and she planned her Chimney Corner as an illustrated fireside friend that would provide American mothers with domestic stories, their daughters with romances, their sons w ith dramatic escapades, and youngsters with adventures and fairy tales. On 3 June 1865, in the w ords of the editor:
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