| Louisa May Alcott November 29, 1832-March 6, 1888 |
| Flower Fables Etext: http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/AlcFlow.html
Jo's Boys eText: http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=3499 Old Fashioned Girl eText: http://www.online-literature.com/alcott/old_fashioned_girl/ ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext01/ofgrl10.txt Under The Lilac - 1893 Kingsport Press - Office File Copy 12 4 1893 run 5,075 printed 5,075 G&D in DJ Online eText Version: http://www.underthesun.cc/Classics/Alcott/lilacs/lilacs1.html
Little Women Little Men |
 Louisa
May Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania on November 29, 1832.
She and her three sisters, Anna, Elizabeth and May were educated
by their father, philosopher/ teacher, Bronson Alcott and raised on the
practical Christianity of their mother, Abigail May.Louisa spent her childhood
in Boston and in Concord, Massachusetts, where her days were enlightened
by visits to Ralph Waldo Emerson?s library, excursions into nature with
Henry David Thoreau and theatricals in the barn at Hillside (now Hawthorne?s
"Wayside"). Like her character, Jo March in Little Women, young Louisa
was a tomboy: "No boy could be my friend till I had beaten him in
a race," she claimed, " and no girl if she refused to climb trees, leap
fences...." For Louisa, writing was an early passion. She had a rich imagination
and often her stories became melodramas that she and her sisters would
act out for friends. Louisa preferred to play the "lurid" parts in these
plays, "the villains, ghosts, bandits, and disdainful queens." At age 15,
troubled by the poverty that plagued her family, she vowed: "I will do
something by and by. Don?t care what, teach, sew, act, write, anything
to help the family; and I?ll be rich and famous and happy before I die,
see if I won?t!" Confronting a society that offered little opportunity
to women seeking employment, Louisa determined "...I will make a battering-ram
of my head and make my way through this rough and tumble world." Whether
as a teacher, seamstress, governess, or household servant, for many years
Louisa did any work she could find. Louisa?s career as an author began
with poetry and short stories that appeared in popular magazines.
In 1854, when she was 22, her first book Flower Fables was published.
A milestone along her literary path was Hospital Sketches (1863) based
on the letters she had written home from her post as a nurse in Washington,
DC as a nurse during the Civil War. When Louisa was 35 years old, her publisher
Thomas Niles in Boston asked her to write "a book for girls." Little Women
was written at Orchard House from May to July 1868. The novel is based
on Louisa and her sisters? coming of age and is set in Civil War New England.
Jo March was the first American juvenile heroine to act from her
own individuality; a living, breathing person rather than the idealized
stereotype then prevalent in children?s fiction.In all, Louisa published
over 30 books and collections of stories. She died on March 6, 1888, only
two days after her father, and is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord.
 Louisa
May Alcott, the second daughter of Amos Bronson Alcott and Abigail
"Abba" May was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania on November 29, 1832.
At an early age, Louisa and her family moved to Boston, Massachusetts where
her father pursued his teaching career by setting up the Temple School.
Bronson Alcott was well known for his controversial teaching methods which
relied more on student involvement and a belief that children should enjoy
learning. In 1840 the family moved to Concord where prominent American
author and close friend of the Alcott's, Ralph Waldo Emerson, helped the
family to set up residence. Louisa enjoyed the county atmosphere of Concord
and found her time divided between acting out plays with her sisters which
she had written, and nature walks with Henry David Thoreau. In1843 the
Alcott family took part in an experimental communal village known as the
Fruitlands. Here Bronson Alcott wished to further his beliefs in transcendentalism
and bring his daughters a greater understanding of nature.unfortunately
the project failed and the family returned to Concord in 1845 taking up
residence at Hillside.
Unable to guarantee his family a steady income, Bronson moved the Alcotts back to Boston in1849. At this point, Louisa began to feel more and more responsible for her family's financial needs and started taking on as many jobs as a young girl could find. She began reading for an elderly father and his invalid sister, but this eventually turned sour when Louisa received next to nothing for her work. At the same time, Louisa and her sister Anna took to teaching small children and mended and washed laundry in an effort to help provide for the growing Alcott family. In 1852 Louisa's first poem, "Sunlight" was published in Peterson's magazine under the pseudonym, Flora Fairfield. Although modest payment was received, Louisa was beginning a career that would bring her great fame and end her financial worries. Three years later, in 1855, her first book, Flower Fables was published. At this point, the Alcott family moved to Walpole, New Hampshire but Louisa stayed on in Boston to further her literary career. Tragedy struck the family in 1856 when the third daughter, Lizzie, contracted scarlet fever. Lizzie would recover for the time being but her illness forced the Alcott's back to Concord where Emerson purchased Orchard House for the family. Lizzie's sickness returned and she passed away on March 14. Yet happiness was soon to follow as Anna, the oldest announced that she was to be married. Anna's wedding and Lizzie's death forced Louisa to return to Concord house in 1857. She wished to help comfort her mother during this time and try to help alleviate the lose of two daughters. Louisa saw that her loving
heart was need by more than just her family and she headed for Washington,
DC. in 1862 to serve as a Civil War Nurse. Like many other nurses, Louisa
contracted typhoid fever and although she recovered, she would suffer the
poisoning effects of mercury (the doctors at the time had used calomel,
a drug laden with mercury to cure typhoid) for the rest of her life. Her
stay in Washington prompted Louisa to write Hospital Sketches
which was published in 1863 followed by Moods in 1864. At this point Louisa's
publisher, Thomas Niles, told her that he wanted "a girls story" from her.
Having spent her life with three of the most interesting girls, Louisa
wrote furiously for two and a half months and produced Little Women based
on her own experiences growing up as a young women with three other sisters.
The novel, published September 30, 1868, was an instant success and sold
more than 2,000 copies immediately. In fact the country was so taken with
Louisa's story that her publisher begged for a second volume. April 14,
1869 saw the release of the second volume with a response of more than
13,000 copies being sold immediately. Alcott's story of Meg, Jo, Beth,
and Amy had launched her into stardom and helped to alleviate the family's
financial problems. Louisa followed up her success with Old Fashioned Girl
in 1870. Needing a break, Louisa and her youngest sister May headed off
to Europe in 1870. The next few years, however, saw Alcott's career grow
and grow as book after book was published and enjoyed by a huge audience
of young readers. Little Men was published in 1871 followed by Work in
1873, Eight Cousins in 1874, and Rose in Bloom in 1876. During this time,
Alcott became active in the women's suffrage movement, writing for "The
Woman's Journal" and canvassing door to door trying to encourage women
to register to vote. In 1879 Alcott became the first woman in Concord to
register to vote in the village's school committee election. Unfortunately,
Abba's health was failing and she passed in November of 1877.Yet sorrow
was not to last long in the Alcott family as May announced her marriage
to a wealthy European in 1878. May gave birth the following year, November
8, 1879 to Louisa May Nieriker. Sadly complications arose, and May died
December 29th of the same year. Her dying wish was for Louisa to care for
her namesake, Lulu. In 1880 Lulu moved to Boston with Louisa and helped
to bring joy and fulfillment to Alcott's life. In 1885 Louisa moved what
remained of her family into elegant Louisburg Square, Boston. Still writing
as best as she could, for the mercury poisoning she had received early
in life was beginning to take its toll, Louisa published Jo's Boys in 1886.
Her father's health finally failed and he passed March 4, 1888. Two days
later, at the age of 56, Louisa May Alcott died in Boston, leaving a legacy
in wonderful books to be admired and cherished for generations to come.
~ Deborah Durbin
|
| W. F. Alder |
| The Isle of Vanishing Men ~ 1922 ~ NY: The Century Co. ~ 207
pages ~ 23 B&W photo illustrations ~ Indonesia
A narrative of adventure in cannibal-land". A sailing trip to Malaysia in the early 1920's.  
Other: Men of the Inner Jungle ~ 1923 ~ The Century Co. ~ 296pp ~ Illustrated with B&W photographic plates A visit to the head-hunting tribes of Borneo in the early 1920's. |
| Grand Duke Alexander (Mikhailovitch) of Russia (1866-1934 ). |
Once a Grand Duke ~ 1932 ~ NY: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc.
 Grand Duke
Alexander said this about America during a visit in 1913: "As a matter
of fact, there was one startling change which seemed to have escaped the
attention of the native observers. The building of the Panama Canal and
the stupendous development of the Pacific Coast had created a new form
of American pioneering; their industries had grown to where a foreign outlet
had become a sheer necessity. Their financiers who used to borrow money
in London, Paris, Amsterdam had suddenly found themselves in the position
of creditors. The rustic republic of Jefferson was rapidly giving way to
the empire of Rockefellers, but the average man-in-the-street had not yet
entirely caught up with this new order of things, and the bulk of the nation
was still thinking in terms of the nineteenth century (Once a Grand Duke,
p. 242)." |
 Grand Duke
Alexander was born on April 1, 1866 in Tiflis (now Tbilisi), and died
in 1934 in the United States. He loved everything American and as a youth
he longed to run away to the United States. He despised the empty rituals
of the Greek Orthodox "church" and wanted to remake his country in the
image of the U.S.A. He visited this country in 1893 and again in 1913.
He moved to the U.S. in 1928 and began a career as an author of several
books on Russian history. Grand Duke Alexander was the nephew of Emperor
Alexander II. This was the Emperor that freed the serfs in 1861. He sent
the Russian navy to New York, Virginia and San Francisco in 1863 and their
presence was a warning to France and Great Britain to stay out of the conflict.
In 1867, he sold Alaska to the U.S. for the measly sum of $7.2 million
dollars. For freeing the serfs and saving the American Union, Emperor Alexander
was killed by a Jesuit assassin in 1881. In 1918, Czar Nicholas II and
his entire family were assassinated by Jesuits disguised as Soviets or
Bolsheviks. Even though he was related to most of the crowned heads of
Europe, none of them came to his aid. One of these Rockefeller Bolsheviks
was named Joseph Stalin who later became dictator of Russia. |
| Thomas Bailey Aldrich 1836 - 1907 |
The Story of a
Bad Boy One Version: 1911 Houghton Mifflin ~ illustrated by A.B.
Frost ~ Second Version: 1927 John C. Winston Co. 13 colour illustrations
by Edwin John Prittie ~ 253 pages
 
This neat little novel is written in the tradition of Tom Sawyer, though it appeared five years earlier than Twain's classic. It's about all the mischief, chivalry, loyalty, and pluck of a young boy's life. Aldrich is in love with his material and revels in all the antics his characters get involved in. Online eTexts: The Story of a Bad Boy Other An Old Town by the Sea 1869 |
 
Thomas Bailey Aldrich 1836 - 1907 ~ Arguable Portsmouth's most famous writer, TB Aldrich is best known for his his mischievous youth. His "Story of a Bad Boy" (1869) is still in print and inspired Mark Twain's mischeivous Tom Sawyer. As a poet and editor of The Atlantic Monthly, Aldrich mixed with the Boston lieterati. But he never forgot his childhood days at Grampa Nutter's house in Portsmouth, today a museum. His compact history of Portsmouth, An Old Town by the Sea, is still a readable guide to the old port. |
| Frederick Lewis Allen (July 5, 1890 Boston, Massachusetts - February 13, 1954 New York City) |
| Only
Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s ~ 1931 ~ Harper Rowe
An Informal History of the Nineteen-Twenties. Allen offers a popular overview of the past decade's politics, morals, fashions, and art. Allen served on the editorial staff of the Atlantic Monthly (1914-1916), Century magazine (1916-1917), and Harper's Magazine (1923-1953).      Written in 1931,
this new installment in the Wiley Investment Classics series offers a well-written
historical and anecdotal account of the volatile stock market of the 1920s.
It traces the rise of post World War I prosperity up to the crash of 1929
before a colorful backdrop that includes Al Capone, Prohibition, the first
radio, and the rise and fall of the skirt length.
Only Yesterday: Hailed as a classic even when it was first published
in 1931, Only Yesterday remains one of the most vivid and precise accounts
of the volatile stock market and the heady boom years of the 1920's. A
vibrant social history that is unparalleled in scope and accuracy, it artfully
depicts the rise of post - World War I prosperity, the catalytic incidents
that led to the Crash of 1929, and the devastating economic decline that
ensued - all set before a colorful backdrop of flappers, Al Capone, the
first radio, and the "scandalous" rise of skirt hemlines. Now, this mesmerizing
chronicle is reintroduced to offer readers of today an unforgettable look
at one of the most dynamic periods of America's past. With a novelist's
eye for detail and a historian's attention to the facts, Frederick Lewis
Allen tells a story that will ignite your imagination as its rich pageant
of characters and events comes alive. Peppering his narrative with actual
stock quotes and financial news, Allen tracks the major economic trends
of the decade and explores the underlying causes of the Crash. Here are
fresh accounts of Harding's oil scandals and the growth of the automobile
industry
Others:
  |
| Lucy Grace Allen 1867 - ? |
| Table
Service - Little, Brown ~ Boston :[c1915] 1920 A7
Online eText Version: http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4388613 http://www.phouka.com/ant/book01/chap-14.htm
INTRODUCTION
Lucy Grace Allen Of the Boston School of Cookery |
| Almanac |
| World Almanac 1944 ~ Published by the New-York World-Telegram.
includes over 50 pages of WWII facts and memorabilia
|
| Joseph A. Altsheler 1862-1919 | ||||
| The Great Sioux Trail
1911 or 1918 ~ NY/London: D. Appleton and Co.
Illustrated by Charles L. Wrenn ~ A story of mountain and plain ILLUSTRATED BY CHARLES L. WRENN
   Online eText Editions Free Rangers Guns of Bull Run: A Story of the Civil War's Eve Guns of Shiloh: A Story of the Great Western Campaign Scouts of the Valley The Scouts of Stonewall: The Story of the Great Valley Campaign Star of Gettysburg: A Story of Southern High Tide Young Trailers Project Gutenberg Editions |
||||
 Joseph
Alexander Altsheler, reporter and western writer, son of Joseph and
Louise (Snoddy) Altsheler, was born at Three Springs, Kentucky, on April
29, 1862. He attended Liberty College in Glasgow, Kentucky, and Vanderbilt
University. In 1885 he worked as a reporter and in various editorial positions
at the Louisville Courier-Journal. In 1892 he worked for the New York World
and in 1898 served as that paper's correspondent in Honolulu. Working as
a reporter, feature writer, and editor, he became a storywriter almost
by chance when he was unable to secure a desirable serial for boys and
decided to write one himself. This began a long list of juvenile stories,
grouped in six main series: the French and Indian War, Great West, Young
Trailers, Civil War, World War, and Texas. Altsheler was interested in
American history and took care to ensure authentic historical facts in
his books. On May 30, 1888, he married Sarah Boles; they had one son, Sidney.
The Altshelers were caught in Germany when World War Iqv broke out in 1914,
and the hardships they endured in returning to America broke Altsheler's
health. He was a semi-invalid until his death, in New York on June 5, 1919.
His principal works on Texas were The Border Watch (1912), The Texan Star
(1912), Apache Gold (1913), The Texan Triumph (1913), and The Texan Scouts
(1913).
http://www.hstreasures.com/authors/joseph_altsheler.html
|
| Roald Amundsen July 16, 1872 Borge, Østfold, Norway - June 18, 1928 (aged 55) | ||
My Life As An Explorer (2 volumes) ~ 1927 ~ Doubleday, Page
& Co.
Others The South Pole: An Account of the Norwegian Antarctic Expedition in the Fram, 19101912 by Roald Amundsen The South Pole; an account of the Norwegian Antarctic expedition in the "Fram," 1910-12 - Vol 1 & 2 (Gutenberg) World Cat Listing
Amundsens real interest lay to the North and soon he had conquered the fabled Northwest passage and was preparing for an assault on the North Pole when news arrived that Admiral Peary had beaten him to his goal. Plans were changed quickly and in 1910 he set sail for Antarctica and his greatest achievement, to be the first man to reach the South Pole. Amundsen returned a hero to his native land which had only recently gained its independence. However he was greeted with barely concealed contempt by the British whom he describes as "a race of very bad losers" With both Poles conquered Amundsen turned to the serious business of making polar exploration both safer and more efficient. In 1925 he attempted to fly two planes across the arctic ocean with the American Lincoln Ellsworth and a crew of six. Mechanical problems caused one of the planes to ditch 600 miles north of Spitsbergen at a latitude of 88o. So began a desperate race for survival as over the next 25 days the eight men carved a skiway from which to launch their one remaining plane which was perched on a shrinking sheet of ice 12,000 ft above the seabed. The overloaded plane barely made it into the air and narrowly avoided skidding into the sea before carrying the starving men to safety. Undeterred Amundsen and Ellsworth now planned a second attempt at the journey. The dirigible N1, later christened the "Norge", was purchased from the Italian airforce. who also supplied the ships designer, Colonel Nobile as pilot and a crew of six mechanics. Amundsen considered the expedition as a purely Norwegian-American endeavour with the Italians merely hired hands but the new dictatorship of Mussolini seized the propaganda initiative declaring to the world that it would be the Italian airforce that would conquer the Arctic skies. Despite Amundsens protests to the contrary many of his countrymen were duped and considered his dealings with Italy as at best naive, at worst traitorous. Things were to get far worse. The Italian pilot proved to be more of an irresponsible playboy than a skilled aviator and many times during the course of the journey he brought the crew close to disaster. Fiercely protective of his command he was prone to daydreaming and turning his back to the wheel and once had to be wrestled to the floor as, unbeknown to him, the ship hurtled towards the ground. On another occasion he flew the ship far too high. "Suddenly Nobile 'came too'. We had reached a point so high as to reduce the atmospheric pressure on the outside of the gas bag to a point where the gas pressure inside threatened to burst the bag. Nobile now made a frantic effort to get the nose of the Norge pointed downward. The ship did not respond to the rudder. Then Nobile lost his head completely. With tears streaming down his face, and wringing his hands, he stood screaming: 'Run fast to the bow! Run fast to the bow!' Three of our Norwegians dashed forward on the runway under the bag, and by their weight forced the Norge's nose downward." Despite these near disasters the journey was successful and became the first to fly across the North Pole. Unfortunately his dealings with the Italian government and the financial problems caused by his many expeditions had seriously dented Amundsens reputation both at home and abroad. The remainder of this book is concerned with detailed refutations of the charges levelled against him. In hindsight we can look back at Roald Amundsens career and marvel but it seems sad that the honour we was due was not forthcoming during his extraordinary life. |
||
 Roald
Amundsen (Roald Engelbregt Grauning Amundsen) 18721928, Norwegian
polar explorer; the first person to reach the South Pole. He served (189799)
as first mate on the Belgica (under the Belgian Adrien de Gerlache) in
an expedition to the Antarctic, and he commanded the Gjöa in the Arctic
in the first negotiation of the Northwest Passage (19036); the Gjöa
was the first single ship to complete the route through the Northwest Passage.
His account appeared in English as Amundsen's North West Passage (1908).
He then purchased Fridtjof Nansen's Fram and prepared to drift toward the
North Pole and then finish the journey by sledge. The news that Robert
E. Peary had anticipated him in reaching the North Pole caused Amundsen
to consider going south. He was successful in reaching the South Pole on
Dec. 14, 1911, after a dash by dog team and skis from the Bay of Whales
(an inlet of Ross Sea). He arrived there just 35 days before Robert F.
Scott. This story he told in The South Pole (tr. 1913). In the course of
these expeditions, he added much valuable scientific and geological information
to the knowledge of Antarctica.
In 1918, back in the Arctic, Amundsen set out to negotiate the Northeast
Passage in the Maud. After two winters he arrived at Nome, the first after
N. A. E. Nordenskjöld to sail along the whole northern coast of Europe
and Asia. Amundsen then turned to air exploration. He and Lincoln Ellsworth
in 1925 failed to complete a flight across the North Pole, but the next
year in the dirigible Norge, built and piloted by Umberto Nobile, they
succeeded in flying over the pole and the hitherto unexplored regions of
the Arctic Ocean N of Alaska. A bitter controversy followed with Nobile
as to the credit for the success. Yet in 1928, when Nobile crashed in the
Italia, Amundsen set out on a rescue attempt that cost him his life. Although
credit for the first flight over the North Pole has long been given to
Richard Byrd, notes from Byrd's diary suggest that he may not actually
have reached the pole, in which case Amundsen and Nobile would hold that
distinction. The story of the ventures with Ellsworth, written by the two
of them, appear in Our Polar Flight (1925) and The First Crossing of the
Polar Sea (1927).
|
| Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) |
 
Fairy Stories 1872 Fairy Tales ~ G&D Online eText: http://hca.gilead.org.il/ Some of the stories include: The Garden of paradise, Little Tiny, The Fir Tree, The Storks, Little Ida's Flowers, The Red Shoes, The Ugly Duckling, The Princess and the pea, The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf, The Angel, The Bottle neck, The Snow Queen, The Swineherd, The marsh king's Daughter, The Emperor's New Clothes, Hans Clodhopper, Great Claud and Little Claus, The Wild Swans, Thi Nightingale, Elder Tree Mother, Holger the Dane, The Bell  
Later edition 
Everything In Its Right Place 1889 |
 Thanks to his
fairy tales and stories, Hans Christian Andersen, 1805-1875, is
probably the most widely read author in the world today, but even in his
own time he was read andknown from Russia in the east to America in the
west. His career from the lowest stratum of society in his
native town of Odense in Funen via his problematic adaptation to the official
and bourgeois circles in Copenhagen and further still until he became a
familiar guest in the country mansions of Denmark, the palaces of kings
and princes and the entire cultural stage of Europe provided him with material
for many of his works and for no fewer than three autobiographies, the
final version being Mit Livs Eventyr (1855, The Fairy Tale of My
Life (with later supplements)). Modern editions of his correspondence and
diaries have produced an unusually comprehensive insight into his life
and his complex personality. Andersen's fairy tales and stories (about
190 in all, written 1835-1872) are addressed to both adults and children
and are stylistically and thematically deeply original. In addition he
wrote novels, travel accounts (he spent a large part of his life travelling
abroad), poems
and works for the theatre (including libretti for operas and ballad operas). Although Andersen's work has its roots in Romanticism he is a modern spirit thanks to his social experience, his psychological insight, his belief in progress and industrial development. The special quality in his fairy tales is also precisely the combination of poetry, fantasy tale and everyday reality. http://hca.gilead.org.il/www.html  Wikipedia Entry |
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