Alcott in Her Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of Her LIfe, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associates

From Across My Path: Memories of People I Have Known (1916)

From Across My Path: Memories of People I Have Known (1916) LaSalle Corbell Pickett LaSalle Corbell Pickett (1848–1931) was the third wife of Confederate general George Edward Pickett, leader of the famous “Pickett’s Charge” at the battle of Gettysburg in 1863. At only fifteen years old, she departed her family’s home behind Union lines to wed the thirty-eight-year-old military leader in Petersburg , Virginia. In order to support herself and her young son after the general’s death in 1875, LaSalle wrote and toured the country as a speaker, telling stories of the Civil War and of the famous people she had met. The conversation that Pickett recalls here focuses on Alcott’s “natural ambition . . . for the lurid style” and the restrictions she felt that “the proper grayness of old Concord” put upon her literary imagination. Alcott’s novel A Modern Mephistopheles was published anonymously in April 1877 by Roberts Brothers as part of its No Name series. This series, presented as a publisher’s contest, issued a number of titles and asked readers to guess the authors. The public was surprised at the contest’s conclusion to discover that the author of Little Women had penned this dark, Hawthorne-like novel. It was not until 1889, a year after Louisa May’s death, that Roberts Brothers issued A Modern Mephistopheles and A Whisper in the Dark with Louisa’s name on the title page. “A Whisper in the Dark,” which had originally appeared in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper on 6 and 13 June 1863, was offered as an example of Jo March’s “necessity stories.” Pickett, of course, was unaware both at the time of her conversation with Alcott and when she wrote the book chapter in 1916 that the famous author had written dozens of anonymous “blood and thunder” tales for the penny dreadfuls. In 1869 “Little Women” came into the world and took by storm all young people and all people who had once been young. Miss Alcott had been known as a writer of fairy tales, had published a volume of “Flower Fables” and had contributed a number of stories to Boston journals. In 1863 she published her experiences in a war hospital, under the [183] * title of “Hospital Sketches,” having been compelled by the failure of her health to give up the work into which she had put her strength and patriotic enthusiasm. To comfort herself for the disappointment she recorded her war memories, putting into the volume so much of the earnestness and sympathy that had formerly gone into her hospital work that her story reached the hearts of the readers and became a popular book. Some years later her novel of “Moods” was published. It was not until “Little Women” had been added to the ever-increasing list of Miss Alcott’s works that her public became acquainted with the home life and inner thought of the author. It was soon discovered that the “Little Women” were the author and her sisters in the old home at Concord and the interest was as great as that of watching a group of young lives expanding before the eyes of the readers. There was a heart knowledge and a heart interest in the book not to be found in fiction. Miss Alcott’s friends were not only surprised but incredulous when it was discovered that she was the author of the volume in “No Name Series,” called “A Modern Mephistopheles.” I could scarcely accept the statement when first presented, but it recalled to me a conversation I once had with her in Boston. Speaking of “Little Women” I said: “The story is so natural and lifelike that it shows your true style of writing ,—the pure and gentle type, with innocent young lives and the events that would inevitably befall bright girls and boys with the thoughts and feelings befitting a quiet loving home circle.” “Not exactly that,” she replied. “I think my natural ambition is for the lurid style. I indulge in gorgeous fancies and wish that I dared inscribe them upon my pages and set them before the public.” “Why not?” I asked. “There seems to be no reason why you should not be gorgeous if you like.” “How should I dare to interfere with the proper grayness of old Concord? The dear old town has never known a startling hue since the redcoats were there. Far be it from me to inject an inharmonious color...