Rose in Bloom

Rose in Bloom, by Louisa May Alcott, depicts the story of a nineteenth-century girl, Rose Campbell, finding her way in society. It is Alcott's sequel to Eight Cousins. The story begins when Rose returns home from a long trip to Europe. Everyone has changed. As a joke, Rose lines up her seven cousins to take a long look at them, just as they did with her when they first met. The youngest, Jamie, accidentally mentions that the aunts want Rose to marry one of her cousins to keep her fortune in the family. Rose is very indignant, for she has decided ideas about what her future holds. Phebe also comes home no longer the servant that Rose "adopted" but as a young lady with a cultured singing ability. Rose challenges anyone who would look down on "her Phebe," and she is readily accepted as part of the Campbell clan until Archie falls in love with her. Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) was a prolific and multi-talented American writer. Amongst her works are passionate, fiery novels, moralistic and wholesome stories for children, philosophical essays and letters. Her overwhelming success however, was with Little Women: or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy (1868), a semiautobiographical account of her childhood years with her three sisters in Concord, Massachusetts. Part Two, or Part Second, also known as Good Wives (1869) followed the March sisters into adulthood and their respective marriages. Little Men (1871) detailed the characters and ways of Alcott's nephews who lived with her at Orchard House in Concord, and Jo's Boys (1886) completed the "March Family Saga."