Publisher's Synopsis
A delightful collection of sketches by Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888), the author best known as the creator of such novels as LITTLE WOMEN, AN OLD-FASHIONED GIRL, LITTLE MEN, and EIGHT COUSINS. She won critical acclaim with HOSPITAL SKETCHES, an engaging and deeply moving account of her service as an army nurse during the Civil War. Encouraged by its initial reception, she published shortly thereafter LETTERS FROM THE MOUNTAINS, a series of wilfully outrageous sketches chronicling her misadventure-filled vacation in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Irreverent and deliciously mordant, Alcott's European travel reports - UP THE RHINE, LIFE IN A PENSION, A ROYAL GOVERNESS, and RECENT EXCITING SCENES IN ROME - are among her finest comic performances. In the latter part of her career, Alcott wrote a number of captivating sketches for young readers, including the poignant memoirs REMINISCENCES OF RALPH WALDO EMERSON and RECOLLECTIONS OF MY CHILDHOOD. The sketches reveal Alcott at her stylistically most accomplished and stand as enduring achievements in literary writing.
