A Long Fatal Love Chase

1866, 1997 Dell (Random House) edition
Louisa May Alcott, edited by Kent Bicknell
A Long Fatal Love Chase
Original price $6.99, bought used for $3.50
Slightly worn paperback
C


I decided not to use "British" and "American" tags for my posts because almost everything I reread will be one or the other.  This is a very strange first American entry though, for several reasons.

1.  While written in 1866, the novel wasn't published in Alcott's lifetime, in fact not till 1995.
2.  Alcott is of course best known for Little Women and other children's books.
3.  I purchased this copy in the last couple years and have read it only once before, as opposed to Little Women, which I've gone through a few copies of in the last 30 or so years.
4.  The story, instead of being an uplifting tale of family and friendship, is a melodrama about a heartless grandfather, a false marriage, near bigamy, divorce, the ugliest custody battle I've ever heard of, unconsummated love between a non-virginal woman and a priest, stalking across Europe over a few years, murder and faked deaths, and of course the accidental death of the heroine.
5.  It's written in a style and with plotting much clumsier than in Alcott's published works.
6.  Alcott stereotypes nationalities just as much as Charlotte Brontë does, but Brontë definitely never claimed that Englishmen are usually shy and awkward around women.

All that said, it's not a terrible book.  There are moments when it's laughably bad, mostly the one-note cliff-hangers.  "It was Philip Tempest!!!  Again."  However, the story does move along and I liked that so many people were willing to help Rosamond, even if they're no match for devilish Tempest.  I don't get the hype about the novel, particularly that it's supposed to be "erotic," but maybe critics got swept up as Rosamond does.

A note about her name.  She goes by Rosalie for awhile but Philip calls her Rose.  This leads to the fourth chapter "Rose in Bloom," and in 1876 Alcott published Rose in Bloom, the sequel to Eight Cousins.  I've read both but only own Eight Cousins.  It'll be amusing to compare Rosamond Vivian Tempest to Rose Campbell.