Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father

by John Matteson

CUNY English literature professor Jon Matteson tells the dual life stories of the author of Little Women and her father, the eminent teacher Bronson Alcott, against the unfolding backdrop of the American Civil War and the growing Transcendental intellectual movement. “”A double biography is a difficult thing to bring off but Matteson does it beautifully,” observed The Guardian, on first release in 2008, “giving a vivid but delicate account of two complicated characters inextricably entwined.”