More Favorite Stories of Christmas Pa..., Louisa May Alcott
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More Favorite Stories of Christmas Past

Author: Louisa May Alcott, Hans Christian Andersen, Charles Dickens, L. M. Montgomery, Henry Van Dyke

Narrator: Simon Prebble, Joyce Bean

Unabridged: 4 hr 48 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/20/2008

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

Tantor Media presents a collection of some of the most popular Christmas stories read by two award-winning narrators. This special anthology will transport listeners back to the Christmases of their youth, when they first heard these holiday tales. From Henry Van Dyke's classic Christmas blessing, "Keeping Christmas," to Charles Dickens's popular tale of yuletide redemption, "A Christmas Carol," More Favorite Stories of Christmas Past has something for everyone. Also included is Louisa May Alcott's inspirational "A Christmas Dream, and How It Came True," as well as four other Christmas classics that can be heard and shared year after year. The classics that can be found in More Favorite Stories of Christmas Past are: "Keeping Christmas" by Henry Van Dyke; "A Christmas Dream, and How It Came True" by Louisa May Alcott; "The Last Dream of the Old Oak" by Hans Christian Andersen; "Christmas at Red Butte" by Lucy Maud Montgomery; "The Little Match Girl" by Hans Christian Andersen; "Rosa's Tale" by Louisa May Alcott; and "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens.

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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