Louisa May Alcott

Behind a Mask or a Woman's Power Louisa May Alcott

Little Men, or Life at Plumfield with Jo's Boys, is a children's novel by American author Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888), which was first published in 1871 by Roberts Brothers. The book reprises characters from her 1868-69 two-volume novel Little Women, and acts as a sequel, or the second book in an unofficial Little Women trilogy. The trilogy ends with Alcott's 1886 novel, Jo's Boys, and How They Turned Out: A Sequel to Little Men. Alcott's story recounts the life of Jo Bhaer, her husband, and the various children at Plumfield Estate School. Alcott's classic novel has been adapted to a 1934 film, a 1940 film, a 1998 film, a television series, and a Japanese animated television series. Behind a Mask was originally published in The Flag of Our Union in 1866. Later, in 1975, Madeleine B. Stern republished the story under Alcott's name with a collection of her other pieces. The republication of the work engendered new interest among literary critics; according to Christine Doyle Francis, it "stimulated the reconsideration of [Alcott's] career" in the period since. This story belongs with many other thrillers and mysteries that Alcott published under the pseudonym A. M. Barnard. Of all her stories of femme fatales, Behind a Mask is considered Alcott's masterpiece in the genre of sensation fiction. Critic Christine Doyle Francis describes the novel as "ow[ing] most to Alcott's reading of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre and William Thackery's Vanity Fair. In this light, Jean Muir becomes a subversion of the classic governess character in protest to the British class system and in praise of America as a "land of opportunity".