My Heart is Boundless: Writings of Abigail May Alcott, Louisas Mother

She really had a difficult life at times, but most of the time had a positive outlook on life. Sep 04, Tracey rated it really liked it Shelves: Abigail May Alcott, the model for Marmee of Little Women, was obviously an intelligent woman who was an example and mentor to Louisa. I wish she herself had written a work of fiction. Dec 31, Lydia Presley rated it really liked it Shelves: What a way to start out - wrapping up my reading of these lovely bits of notes, letters, and historical tidbits by and about Abigail May Alcott.

My Heart is Boundless is a nice, tidy, organized book that chronologically mostly follows Abigail's life through her own writing and reflection. I was the oldest of four girls for a time, before three brothers and two more sisters came along and related well to Meg - What a way to start out - wrapping up my reading of these lovely bits of notes, letters, and historical tidbits by and about Abigail May Alcott. I was the oldest of four girls for a time, before three brothers and two more sisters came along and related well to Meg - the oldest of Louisa's quartet.

I admired her quiet dignity, her willingness to accept what happened, and understood how she managed being surrounded by the sisters she was surrounded by. So it was a bit of a delight for me to learn that Louisa's mother, Abigail, also had quite a few sisters and brothers and I hungrily dug in to her writings.

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I identified strongly with Louisa's desire for knowledge and information - but not only that, her desire to keep her family close. There was quite a bit of tragedy that struck the May family and Abigail appeared to be the bedrock through it all. These writings are a perfect example of how a woman of her time need not be shut away, but rather could find happiness and fulfillment in ways other than motherhood. My only issue with this collection is how choppy it can be. It's mostly chronological, but I needed to finish it and would have rather spent time reading portions and then moving on to other books.

My Heart is Boundless : Writings of Abigail May Alcott, Louisa's Mother by Eve LaPlante

It does not make for a comfortable, "unputdownable" book - but rather is perhaps intended to be a book to be read in short bites. The other small issue I had was with the numerous footnotes - every name seemed to be identified by the author every single time it cropped up which was nice at first, but after a while I began to feel like I was being treated like I was stupid for "not getting it" when I was. Still, easily enough avoided if you are someone who can resist the temptation of those footnotes. I recommend this for fans of Louisa May Alcott. I think you will find much of Marmee hiding in this book, waiting to be awakened.

May 20, Carol rated it really liked it. This book is a must-read for adults who, as children, loved the "Little Women" books. These letters and journal entries of the woman who appears, thinly disguised as "Marmee," the mother, in "Little Women," reveal a spirited, intelligent, and remarkable woman. The great-niece who edited this book had a difficult task; large sections of the letters and diaries had been removed, evidently to hide material that was considered too personal or that revealed details of the Alcotts' troubled marriage. Married to Bronson Alcott, in some ways ahead of his time but impractical and improvident, Abigail, with her four daughters, several orphaned nieces and nephews, and a succession of boarders, endured the humiliation of borrowing from friends and relatives and life in dozens of boardinghouses and rental properties before finally, with the help of family members, settling in Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts.

After the publication of "Little Women" by daughter Louisa May May was a family name the family was finally free from financial worries. Like most women of her time, Abigail had little formal education and was barred by social custom from most forms of gainful employment. In our time, it is easy to forget how hard life was in the time of Abigail Alcott. Death was around every corner, most people had little money, and women's work was never done.

However, beneath the preoccupation with domestic cares and the often flowery, sentimental prose of the time one can glimpse a gifted writer, who knew Emerson and Thoreau, and who was drawn to forward-thinking causes such as abolition of slavery and votes for women. Abigail wished Louisa to have the opportunities that she herself had been denied, and became her daughter's fondest well-wisher. Without Abigail there would have been no "Little Women," and the world would have been poorer.

This collection of journal entries, letters and recollections from previously undiscovered and unpublished collections reveals the true character of the real life Marmee.

Abigail was a headstrong, intelligent, warmhearted woman who had lofty ideals and big dreams but suffered terribly through her husband's inability to support her family. She seems to be the prototype for Jo March. She was a loving mother and devoted sister and wife. Her letters are poignant and beautifully written.

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Abigail had This collection of journal entries, letters and recollections from previously undiscovered and unpublished collections reveals the true character of the real life Marmee. Abigail had radical ideas even for today. She was passionate and dedicated to her causes and her personal educational philosophies. Her devotion to Bronson was a bit irritating. She believed in him and his "genius" and was sympathetic to his unwillingness to work at a position that went against his philosophies.

She realized too late that he wouldn't support their family and did all she could to work for money. Yet, she was torn between working outside the home and staying with her children, which is something I think many modern mothers can relate to. This collection is short but captures the essence of Abigail's life.

My Heart is Boundless : Writings of Abigail May Alcott, Louisa's Mother

I really appreciate the research that went into this collection. I wish there were facsimiles of the original letters though. In exploring these collections while preparing this volume, I have been amazed at the amount of material that still exists in Abigail's hand. My Heart Is Boundless , the first compilation of Abigail's writings, is a sampling of her extant papers, meant to convey the spirit rather than the whole.

Future investigations will no doubt unearth more of Abigail's private papers, just as works of her famous daughter continue to be discovered in attic trunks. Two letters from Abigail to a friend were discovered in the early twenty-first century in the house in western Maine to which she had mailed them in My Heart Is Boundless includes her letters, journal entries, and other miscellaneous papers, including a few recipes. Most of these documents are in the collections of Harvard and Cornell universities and Orchard House, the Alcott museum and educational center in Concord, Massachusetts.

I also include portions of previously unknown family letters describing May and Alcott family life from the s to the s. Among the many subjects that possessed Abigail are mother-daughter relationships, childrearing, marriage and divorce, success, education, slavery and abolition, female suffrage, diet, health, cooking, housekeeping, male-female relationships, and death. In this collection I have arranged her papers chronologically by subject, so that an entry Abigail wrote during her sixties about her childhood appears in the childhood section.

All available information about the date and place of composition is included in the text or explanatory notes. Abigail encouraged Louisa to write and in many senses gave Louisa her voice. On the page Abigail herself comes across as theatrical, poignant, passionate, and often satirical. She seemed effortlessly to coin aphorisms, such as:.

Wisdom must be fed and clothed, and neither the butcher nor tailor will take pay in aphorisms or hypotheses. We are all part and parcel of this condition of things, and I for one am a restless fragment and can't find my niche. Indeed, some scholars consider Abigail "a better writer than her more famous daughter," according to the Alcott family biographer Madelon Bedell.

That is for the reader to decide. Ironically, Abigail's celebrated husband, though a charismatic speaker, could not write a lucid sentence to save his life, according to many who knew him. To her four children she was "Marmee. To her daughter she was the person to whom Louisa felt closest in the world.

My Heart Is Boundless: Writings of Abigail May Alcott, Louisa’s Mother

Abigail gave Louisa her first journal, pushed her to write, and served as her mentor and muse. Louisa in turn pored over her mother's journals and private papers in writing her novels and stories, at Abigail's own insistence, and based many of those tales on Abigail's character and experiences. Abigail's actual words, many of them published here for the first time, illuminate the inner life of a remarkable nineteenth-century woman. I hope that My Heart Is Boundless will show Abigail May Alcott to be not just a mother, housewife, or even mentor to Louisa, but also an American writer and thinker who has too long been ignored.

Every sacrifice I ever made as a mother with regards to sleep, my body, my career and my art I would make again in a heartbeat. The love and companionship of a child, even a grown adult child, fills a very special place in my life. And, after every visit I grieve.

Writings Of Abigail May Alcott, Louisa's Mother

The child goes back to his or her life and I go home and have a good cry. It seems that, at least for that moment, nothing will console me. It is then that I turn to a book, usually about Louisa May Alcott. This time it was My Heart is Boundless: My Heart is Boundless: Writings of Abigail May Alcott on Amazon.