Louisa May Alcott

An Old-Fashioned Girl Louisa May Alcott

AS a preface is the only place where an author can with propriety explain a purpose or apologizefor shortcomings, I venture to avail myself of the privilege to make a statement for the benefit of myreaders. As the first part of "An Old-Fashioned Girl" was written in 1869, the demand for a sequel, inbeseeching little letters that made refusal impossible, rendered it necessary to carry my heroineboldly forward some six or seven years into the future. The domestic nature of the story makes thisaudacious proceeding possible; while the lively fancies of my young readers will supply alldeficiencies, and overlook all discrepancies. This explanation will, I trust, relieve those well-regulated minds, who cannot conceive of suchliterary lawlessness, from the bewilderment which they suffered when the same experiment was triedin a former book. The "Old-Fashioned Girl" is not intended as a perfect model, but as a possible improvementupon [Page] the Girl of the Period, who seems sorrowfully ignorant or ashamed of the good oldfashions which make woman truly beautiful and honored, and, through her, render home what itshould be, -a happy place, where parents and children, brothers and sisters, learn to love and knowand help one another