I’d rather take coffee than compliments just now.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

The world's first known coffee house, Kiva Han, opened in Constantinople in 1475. Coffee Houses became known as 'Penny Universities', where a single copper coin could buy you a cup and an earful of intellectual debate.

#books #publishing #alcott #coffee

For parents with children who have #chronicillness some stories we read as children are a return to sweet memories and relief. Others will knock you on your ass and gut you like they never did when you were young. Rewatching/reading Little Women is tortuous now, Beth's passing is like a frozen knife to the heart. The anxiety Marmy must have lived with makes you understand her deep pain and reminds you of all your dark days.

Must tread these waters carefully. #Alcott

Here's something I bet they never taught you in school.

Louisa May #Alcott, the author of #Little #Women, the seminal text about girlhood, was a #trans man. Let's examine the evidence.

- Went by the name Lou
- wrote "I am more than half-persuaded that I am, by some freak of nature, a man’s soul put into a woman’s body.”
- referred to himself as a "gentleman"
- kids called him "papa"
- when he went to serve in the war as a nurse, his dad said he felt "like he was losing his only son".

Just listening to a discussion of Little Women on the Allusionist podcast. This thought came into my head again:

Louisa May Alcott grew up and lived in New England, where people famously say “Pahk the cah in Hahvahd Yahd.” Why, then, do American actors and scholars rhotacize the R in the name Marmee?

Would Alcott not have pronounced this to rhyme with “mommy”? Isn’t that what she meant? Mahmee?

#dialect #alcott #littlewomen #NewEngland #literature