Debbys Debut, Louisa May Alcott
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Debby's Debut

Author: Louisa May Alcott

Narrator: Lyssa Browne

Unabridged: 1 hr 45 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/14/2023

Categories: Fiction


Synopsis

Debby's Debut, written in 1863, is a delightful story that smells of the sea and summer, of joy and youthful innocence, of love, tenacity and courage to claim one's ideas, in which the typical themes of Alcott's production--the construction of female identity, the dignity of work, the importance of honesty and always remaining faithful to themselves, the safeguarding of the good values that modern society risks forgetting--find a lively, ironic and absolutely convincing expression. An unmissable gem for Alcott lovers.
Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) was an American novelist. She is best known for the novels Little Women, published in 1868, and Little Men. Due to the family's poverty, she began work at an early age as an occasional teacher, seamstress, governess, domestic helper, and writer - her first book was Flower Fables (1854). As she grew older, she developed as both an abolitionist and a feminist. A lesserknown part of her work are the passionate, fiery novels and stories she wrote, usually under the pseudonym A. M. Barnard, such as A Long Fatal Love Chase (1866). Alcott also produced moralistic and wholesome stories for children, and a semi-autobiographical tale Work (1873). In her later life, Alcott became an advocate of women's suffrage and was part of a group of female authors during the Gilded Age to address women's issues in a modern and candid manner. Despite worsening health, Alcott wrote through the rest of her life.
Lyssa Browne makes her home in Seattle where she works as a voice actor, performs in regional theatre companies, as well as acts for TV and film. Her voice can be heard as many different characters in a variety of video games and audiobooks, and as the narrator of documentaries for the Discovery Channel and others.

Author Bio

Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, on November 29, 1832. She and her three sisters—Anna, Elizabeth, and May—were educated by their father, philosopher/ teacher Bronson Alcott, and raised on the practical Christianity of their mother, Abigail May.

Louisa spent her childhood in Boston and in Concord, Massachusetts, where her days were enlightened by visits to Ralph Waldo Emerson's library, excursions into nature with Henry David Thoreau, and theatricals in the barn at Hillside. Like her character Jo March from Little Women, young Louisa was a tomboy.

For Louisa, writing was an early passion. She had a rich imagination, and often her stories became melodramas that she and her sisters would act out for friends. At age fifteen, troubled by the poverty that plagued her family, she vowed to make something of herself. Confronting a society that offered little opportunity to women seeking employment, Louisa remained determined; whether as a teacher, seamstress, governess, or household servant, for many years Louisa did any work she could find.

Louisa's career as an author began with poetry and short stories that appeared in popular magazines. In 1854, when she was twenty-two, her first book, Flower Fables, was published. Another milestone along her literary path was Hospital Sketches, which was based on the letters she had written home from her post as a nurse in Washington, D.C., during the Civil War.

When Louisa was thirty-five, her publisher asked her to write a book for girls. Thus, she wrote Little Women, which is based on Louisa and her sisters' coming of age and is set in Civil War New England. Jo March was the first American juvenile heroine to act from her own individuality; a living, breathing person rather than the idealized stereotype that was then prevalent in children's fiction.

In all, Louisa published over thirty books and collections of stories. She died on March 6, 1888, only two days after her father.

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