Reading Alcott’s Textual Childhood

West begins her exploration of childhood in the works of Louisa May Alcott by examining critical approaches to childhood in which it is often categorized as self-evident or too ‘pure’ to be touched. This chapter establishes the legacy of Alcott’s seminal novel, Little Women, but questions the lack of ongoing popular and critical response to Alcott’s other novels and short stories for children via an analysis of canonicity in its approach to sentimental, domestic, and female-authored literature. Further, West establishes an approach to Alcott’s work in which the term ‘child’ is destabilized, not simply to establish it as something other or to restore Alcott’s children’s works to wider audience, but to consider what is at stake in reading childhood, both within and outside of the text.