"The Inheritance" by Louisa May Alcott, A Book Review

While the famed New England writer, Louisa May Alcott, is best known for her coming of age classic, "Little Women", her first novel, "The Inheritance" makes for a soothing, sentimental, refreshing, and romanticized read. The novel was never published during Alcott's lifetime and was lost to the sands of time until it was discovered by accident in 1988 when some professors who were researching her letters and journals discovered the manuscript at the Houghton Library at Harvard. The reason the manuscript remained unknown until the late 1980s was because it had been miscatalogued and it wasn't until 1997 that "The Inheritance" saw the light of publication.

Written when Louisa May Alcott was but seventeen years of age, "The Inheritance" reflects both the idealism of a young writer such as Alcott at the time but also includes some burgeoning social commentary about gratitude, valuing a person's character, and the shallowness of the class system along the lines of Jane Austen's Regency era novels. It features the protagonist, Edith Adelon, who much like Louisa May Alcott, herself, is in-between the two worlds of privilege and poverty. For Edith in the story is a penniless orphan who serves as the governess for the wealthy Amy Hamilton on an English country estate.

In her own life, Louisa May Alcott, was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania to the penniless and idealistic farmer – turned – teacher, Bronson Alcott, and his wife, Abigail May, who while also idealistic, was the daughter of a wealthy New England shipbuilder and related by marriage to one of the instigators of the American Revolution, John Hancock. For Abigail May's great aunt was Dorothy Quincy, the wife of John Hancock, known in early American history for prominently signing his name on the Declaration of Independence. Thus, while Louisa May Alcott had access to education and some acquaintance with the upper New England Society, her father's refusal to work to support his family, made Louisa and her sisters feel the hardships of poverty keenly while growing up. It is this outsider's perspective into the world of the privileged elite that forms the basis for her novel, "The Inheritance".

Written in very beautiful language, "The Inheritance" opens with a descriptive line befitting the romantic era in which it was written. But, with its beauty, still impacting to the readers of today. As it states that, "In a green park, where troops of bright-eyed deer lay sleeping under drooping trees and a clear lake mirrored in its bosom the flowers that grew upon its edge . . ." With the rest of the novel unfolding in a similarly sentimental fashion. As readers are introduced to the privileged Arthur and Amy. The two Hamilton siblings who are very fond of Edith as Amy's orphan girl governess.

Arthur and Amy genuinely have a high estimation of Edith, in spite of her poverty, and include her in their social circle. Much to the consternation of Lady Ida. With Lady Ida being one of the more realistic depictions of the social elite. As Lady Ida despises Edith. Not due to any wrong that was ever done to her by Edith, but simply because Edith is bestowed with a beautiful singing voice, beauty, and hair down to her knees. Things that Lady Ida, in spite of her noble title, cannot lay claim to and feels Edith should not ever have been graced with due to her lowly position in society.

Arthur's friend, Arlington, in "The Inheritance", is representative of the fraternity boy privileged lad of the day. He takes an interest in Edith. Not necessarily because he truly cares about her, but because he is intrigued by how different she is from his other acquaintances. Before the completion of the novel, however, he does learn to appreciate Edith's character, even if he doesn't fully understand it. And his departure from the estate is marked by the statement that, "His heart reproached him for the wrong he had done her and, with an earnest wish for her forgiveness, he bent low when passing and fancied, by the faint smile on her lips, that she had seen his kind farewell and understood it as 'twas given".

In modern times, where men are standing before the judges in family court filled with fury and resentment about having to pay child support, Lord Percy in "The Inheritance", seems almost too good to be true. But, with his ability to ignore Lady Ida's continual machinations against Edith, and the way he values Edith for her goodness of heart, readers are soon won over to this romantic era ideal. For Lord Percy is the prototypical romantic male lead. He is both noble of birth and noble of character. He also bears a deep-rooted sorrow in his heart from a past love that didn't come to pass. And he forgets poverty and humble birth, "to be a true and faithful friend" to Edith when "others most neglected her."

Edith, herself, represents the romantic era ideal of being very strong in her principles, but as a bit of a damsel – in – distress, she is extremely shy when it comes to standing up for herself. She is self-denying to a fault and dims her light so that others may shine when asked to do so by Lady Ida. As she is definitely the peace maker type. She is fortunate throughout the novel in that Amy and Arthur genuinely appreciate her. In modern day society where it is "survival of the rudest", Edith could easily be devoured whole by "The Sociopath Next Door" as in Dr. Martha Stout's psychological treatise.

Nevertheless, it is Edith's kindness and aid to the poor that helps give "The Inheritance" its beautiful fairy tale-like quality. For before the novel's end, a long lost will of her unknown father is revealed, and Edith is not the lowly born orphan that Lady Ida has so earnestly disdained. Yet, it is her "pure heart, rich in woman's truest virtues and most holy faith", that draws Lord Percy to Edith as he deems the gratitude of those she has blessed "a nobler Inheritance".

At 147 pages in length and with its lovely prose, Louisa May Alcott's "The Inheritance", makes for a comfortable read that fills the reader with a longing for an appreciation of the virtues of goodness, gratitude, and compassion that have yielded to the brusque practicality of modern times. With the fairy tale element being irresistible to any young sentimental reader, as well.

Luisa Reyes is a Tuscaloosa Attorney, piano instructor, and vocalist.

Opinions expressed in the Alabama Gazette are the views of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Alabama Gazette staff or publishers.