John Matteson

Amos Bronson Alcott and his daughter Louisa May didn't always see eye to eye. He was a friend of Emerson and Thoreau's, a staunch abolitionists and a vegetarian, a philosopher, a teacher, yet always poor and in debt. His daughter Louisa was temperamentally was much like her mother and sometimes had her father at his wit's end with her impetuousness and spirit. Then, as she grew older she was much more practical and desirous of the comforts solvency can bring.

In this dual biography of Bronson and his famous daughter, John Matteson draws on the wealth of writings, including personal journals and letters, of the Alcott family to illuminate not just two lives but their changing relationship. Matteson does occasionally venture a little too far in his surmising (I noted a passage where he took Louisa's love for Jane Eyre as potentially linked to her fascination with the idea of mental health being hereditary), and tends to see a lot more autobiography in Louisa's fiction that I thought was perhaps warranted. Still, this well-researched, Pulitzer-prize winning book is a thorough and entertaining read, illuminating these two fascinating people in light of their relationship which each other. Born on the same day 33 years apart and dying within days of each other, Bronson and Louisa may not have always seen eye to eye, but they clearly loved each other and grew in mutual respect over the years. Well worth reading for anyone interested in literary history, Massachusetts history, or Transcendentalists.… (meer)

Pulitzer Prize–winning author John Matteson illuminates three harrowing months of the Civil War and their ineradicable legacy for America.
In December 1862, the Battle of Fredericksburg shattered Union forces and threatened to break apart Abraham Lincoln's government. Five extraordinary individuals experienced Fredericksburg's cataclysmic repercussions—Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Walt Whitman, Louisa May Alcott, John Pelham, and Arthur Fuller. Guided by duty, driven by desire, they moved toward lofty destinies: a young Harvard intellectual steeped in courageous ideals, a gay Brooklyn poet condemned by guardians of propriety, a struggling writer desperate to serve the cause and gain her philosopher father's admiration, a West Point cadet from Alabama excelling in artillery tactics, and a one-eyed minister seeking to prove his manhood.

Because of what they saw and suffered, America, too, would never be the same. In A Worse Place Than...… (meer)

Dr.Matteson has done it again - writing a well researched history on a historical turning point in the Civil War. The book is personalized by focusing on five primary players Whitman, Alcott, Holmes Jr., Fuller and Pelham who are all changed significantly by the signiture event - the Battle of Frdericksburg. Two are primarily soldiers, two are literary and and one is watching things from a religious perspective. The characters are portrayed in a respectful, sensitive fulfilling way. This book is well worth all the acclaim that it received.… (meer)

A very special book. So informative and well-written. I can see why it won the Pulitzer. I'm a native of eastern Massachusetts, and I love reading about Transcendentalists, specially because I can easily visit sites in Boston and Concord.

Matteson did a great job writing a double biography, pulling from a huge number of sources. At first Bronson was the focus. I had a very negative opinion of him before reading this; after reading it, I'm still not going to run out and try to find one of his old books. But I have more respect for him as a parent and teacher than I did previously. I was very surprised to learn that the experiment at Fruitlands lasted only seven months and involved so few people. I visited Fruitlands for the first time in the fall and it is quite developed as a history site, given the short time they spent there.

I have even more respect for Louisa after reading about her lifelong struggle with "moods," and the therapeutic poisoning she suffered when serving as a Civil War nurse in Washington, D.C. After six weeks, she was too sick to continue and was sent home to recover, but never again to feel well. And yet she soldiered on, intent on making her writing pay the bills that her father seemed unable and unwilling to pay with his own labor. Even her great novel, Little Women, was something she wrote at her publisher's request. She was never able to produce her masterpiece for adults.… (meer)