Louisa May Alcott: A Personal Biography

Susan Cheever

Nov 2010 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Tavia Gilbert

About this audiobook

Apart from her bestselling Home Before Dark, a biography of her father, John Cheever, and My Name Is Bill, her penetrating portrait of the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, Susan Cheever's most recent and major success, American Bloomsbury, was a hugely popular nonfiction narrative of the writers and artists (including Emerson, Thoreau, and the Alcott family) of Concord, Massachusetts. With more than 35,000 copies of the book sold since, Cheever has focused on the legendary and much-loved Louisa May Alcott. Every year, new young readers continue to fall in love with Alcott's work, from Little Women to her feminist papers. Based on extensive research and access to Alcott's journals and correspondence, Cheever chronicles all aspects of Alcott's life, beginning with the fateful meeting of her parents to her death, just two days after that of her dynamic and domineering father, Bronson. Cheever examines Alcott's role as a woman, a working writer, and a daughter at a time when Alcott's rejection of marriage in favor of independence-a decision to be no man's "little woman"-was seen as defying conventional wisdom.

About the author

Susan Cheever is the author of numerous works, including My Name is Bill, Home Before Dark, and Treetops. She is the director of the Yaddo Corporation. She has received several awards, including the Associated Press Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Susan lives in New York City.

Audie Award finalist Tavia Gilbert is a classical theater and public radio-trained actress who has earned AudioFile Earphones and Parents' Choice awards for her audiobook narrations. Tavia has narrated more than 250 multicast and single-voice audiobooks.