Work: A Story of Experience

After the success of her beloved masterpiece Little Women, Louisa May Alcott brought her genius for characterization and eye for detail to a series of revolutionary novels and stories that are remarkable in their forthright assertion of women’s rights. The best known and most autobiographical of these books,Work: A Story of Experience (1873), has been called the adult Little Women. It follows the story of Christie Devon, an orphan who, having turned twenty-one, announces “a new Declaration of Independence” and leaves her uncle’s house in order to pursue economic self-sufficiency and to find fulfillment in work. Against the backdrop of the Civil War years, Christie works as a servant, actress, governess, companion, seamstress, and army nurse—all jobs that Alcott knew from personal experience—exposing the often insidious ways in which the employments conventionally available to women constrain their self-determination. With this landmark book Alcott broke new ground in the literary representation of women, creating an unforgettable heroine who pushes at the boundaries of nineteenth-century expectations and assumptions. The text presented here is drawn from Louisa May Alcott: Work, Eight Cousins, Rose in Bloom, & Other Writings,volume #256 in the Library of America series, which is also available in an e-book edition. It is supplemented with a chronology of Alcott's life and career, a note on the book's publication history, helpful explanatory notes highlighting the autobiographical episodes in the novel, a conversation with editor Susan Cheever, and questions for discussion.