The publication of Gothic literature began in the early 1800’s and reached perhaps its greatest moment with the appearance of Bram Stoker’s Dracula in 1897.  Vampire tales have a strong hold in current popular fiction.  Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight Saga is now at the forefront of our attention and a niche genre has developed that uses classic period fiction and historical figures as models for its new works.  Jane Austen’s writings have inspired the horror mashups Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, co-authored by Seth Graham-Smith, Mr. Darcy, Vampyre by Amanda Grange, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters by Ben H. Winters, Jane Bites Back by Michael Thomas Ford, and Dawn of the Dreadfuls by Steve Hockensmith.  Even the Presidency and the British Monarchy have been tapped by Seth Graham-Smith with Abraham Lincoln : Vampire Hunter and A. E. Moorat's Queen Victoria : Demon Hunter. 

Louisa May Alcott’s writing is not immune to the current craze. Little Vampire Women, by Lynn Messina, presents the March family as humanitarian vampires (opposed to consuming human blood).  Family members interact with their neighbors and Laurie wants to join the vampire world.  Jo refuses to accommodate his desire.

Despite the traditional immortality of vampires, Mr. March becomes ill and Beth dies.  Defending vampires becomes important and Jo is an ardent supporter of their cause.  Alcott’s characters all marry the same men as in her novels, but in Messina’s work, the marriages all contribute to the continuation of the vampire way of life. 

As a writer of horror stories herself, Louisa May Alcott might actually have approved!

Little Vampire Women is coming soon to a Pratt Library near you!  Place your hold now on this YA vampire tale.

In the Little Women series, the character we know the least is Mr. March, the scholarly father serving as a chaplain in the American Civil War.  When he returns from the war, having been gravely ill, he remains a figure in the background.  Geraldine Brooks selected the father as the protagonist for her novel March.  It is an outstanding work, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2006.

Brooks creates a complete back story for March, introducing him twenty years earlier than the setting of Little Women.  He is a peddler in Virginia, earning the wealth that later provided a comfortable living for his family.  He is invited to spend time at a plantation, where he is an eyewitness to the torture inflicted on Grace, a family slave.  

We learn that Marmee and March are abolitionists who helped escaped slaves gain their freedom on the Underground Railroad.  We also find out how the family fortune is lost.  The Marches gave money to support John Brown’s abolitionist insurrection in the 1850’s.

The complex novel borrows story lines from Little Women.  Mr. March’s letters to his family include his hopes for his daughters, expressed in Alcott’s novel.  Later, Marmee and John Brooke travel to Washington, D.C., to tend to the ailing Mr. March.  Grace is his hospital nurse and Marmee discovers that the two had been intimately involved.

Geraldine Brooks' work is exceptional.  Her interweaving of  threads from Alcott’s fiction and real life elements – like     including Emerson and Thoreau as friends of the Marches, as they actually were of the Alcotts - with her own compelling story produces a rich texture of familiar and new reading experiences.

Other fictional works by Geraldine Brooks are her debut novel Year of Wonders  and People of the Book.

Most of us are familiar with Little Women, Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel of family life.  It opens at Christmas, during the American Civil War, and introduces us to the March family.  Marmee is the heart of the family and mother to four daughters, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy.  Jo is the aspiring writer whose temper, inherited from her mother, creates conflicts with family and friends.  (Jo is modeled on the author.)  Mr. March is away from his family, serving as a chaplain to Union troops in the war.

The family, once wealthy, lives in genteel poverty, but shares what little they have with poorer immigrants in the neighborhood.  The girls find pleasure in homegrown entertainments, staging plays that Jo writes for them.  New adventures develop as the girls become friends with Laurie Lawrence, grandson of their rich neighbor.

Little Women is regarded as one of the first young adult novels, moving beyond the highly moralistic Sunday School books previously available.  Alcott’s characters are well developed.  The girls’ struggles and successes are blended within each character, where the children in the earlier literature were representative of either good or evil. 

Little Women was a popular success.  Readers clamored to know what happened to the four sisters, especially if they got married.  The original book ended with the chapter “Aunt March Settles the Question”.  Alcott satisfied her readers, for a time, by writing the book that is now printed with the original as Part Two.  Little Men and Jo’s Boys completed the series, describing Meg, Jo, and Amy’s lives as wives, mothers, and mentors.

Other family books by Louisa May Alcott include Eight Cousins and its sequel Rose in Bloom.  Another genre of Alcott’s writing includes mystery, suspense, and horror.  Check out Louisa May Alcott Unmasked : Collected Thrillers, A Double Life : Newly Discovered Thrillers, and From Jo March’s Attic : Stories of Intrigue and Suspense.

Two different authors, West Coast and East Coast venues, and two independent female characters named Sarah.

It doesn’t sound too unusual, but Sarah Woolson is the daughter of a San Francisco judge and has been schooled by him to be a lawyer like her older brother, Samuel. 

Still not that unusual. 

Except that Sarah passed the California bar in the 1880’s.  She is unique in San Francisco – a single woman from a privileged background running her own law firm.  Her clients are not many and not ordinary.  She has twice taken up the cases of Chinese immigrants, at the behest of the local tong lord, thereby endangering her life, and one client lives in a high class brothel, threatening Sarah’s reputation.

All Sarah’s mother wants is for her only daughter to be happily married.  Sarah, however, is determined to remain single and dedicate her life to providing legal representation for the less fortunate residents of the city, despite her attractive suitors.

The East Coast Sarah is the Widow Brandt, whose doctor husband was murdered while he was out on a call.  Sarah herself is a practicing midwife. She makes house calls at all hours of the day or night. 

That is unusual for 21^st century New York City, but Sarah lives in the Gaslight Era of the 1890’s, when Theodore Roosevelt was one of the city’s Police Commissioners.  In the course of her work, going into the tenements, Sarah more than once stumbles into a crime scene.  In so doing, she meets Frank Molloy, a Detective Sergeant in the corruption-ridden New York Police Department.  The daughter of a wealthy family and the Irish Detective form an unlikely alliance to seek out justice for the accused.

Each series features an independent woman of the late 19^th century.  Each provides entertaining mysteries in period settings.  So, pick your Coast and pick your Sarah for enjoyable summer reading.

Murder on Nob Hill is the first of the Sarah Woolson Mysteries, now numbering four, written by Shirley Tallman.  Murder on Astor Place is the first of twelve novels in The Gaslight Mysteries series by Victoria Thompson.

Make a Splash – READ!  Make Waves at Your Library!  Beach Blanket Bingo!

What do they have in common?  They’re the levels of the 2010 Pratt Summer Reading Program.

This year the Citywide reading fun is available to lovers of books of all ages – birth through retirement! 

Make a Splash – READ! is the entry level for newborns through Grade 5.  Make Waves at Your Library is the Young Adult level.  Beach Blanket Bingo is for readers 18 years and older.

Summer Reading Program starts Saturday, June 12 and surfs through Saturday, August 7.  Incentives are given along the wave as babies and school age readers splish/splash toward the goal of completing 8 books during the program.

Adult readers will also receive a prize for playing Beach Blanket Bingo.  Three lucky readers from each branch will be selected for an additional prize from a random drawing of reading logs. 

Full family involvement should make this always worthwhile program even more enjoyable.  Stop by Canton Branch on June 12 – or any day thereafter – and get in the swim!

We look forward to reading with you all again this summer.