SOURCE: "Some Anonymous and Pseudonymous Thrillers of Louisa M. Alcott," in The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, Vol. XXXVII, No. 2, 1943, pp. 131-39.

In the following essay, Rostenberg discusses the publishing history of Alcott's pseudonymous sensation stories.

When Jo March, dressed in her best, entered the office of the Weekly Volcano she found herself confronted by three men "sitting with their heels rather higher than their hats" and smoking long black cigars. Jo had come to offer her latest thriller to the condescending Mr. Dashwood and his partners, the editors of the Weekly Volcano.

How exactly Louisa M. Alcott has revealed her experiences and tribulations as a writer of sensational fiction in Little Women cannot be determined. Nevertheless there is sufficient indication that in reality she had aspired as Jo, had known the counterpart of the critical Mr. Dashwood and his associates and had seen the pages...