For decades readers accepted Louisa May Alcott's sentimental portrayal of the domestic world of women and children as evidence of her wholehearted support of the conservative ideologies of Victorian America. The women's movement of the 1970s sparked a reexamination of Alcott's writings, revealing a more radical vein but failing to establish the extent to which this impulse was realized. In an effort to clarify Alcott's intent, Elizabeth Keyser examines...