Eight Cousins
'Eight Cousins' Summary
Each chapter describes an adventure in Rose's life as she learns to help herself and others make good choices. Rose must define for herself her role as the only woman of her generation in her family and as an heiress in Boston's elite society.
Motherless for most of her life, 13-year-old Rose looks to her many aunts, her friends, and the housemaid Phebe as feminine role models. At the same time, she is suddenly confronted with a male guardian and seven male cousins, none of whom she knows well, after losing her beloved father, the only man in her life.
Like all of Alcott's books for young people, the story takes a high moral tone. Various chapters illustrate the evils of cigar-smoking, "yellow-back" novels, high fashion, billiards, and patent nostrums, while promoting exercise, a healthy diet, and wholesome experiences of many kinds for girls as well as boys. Alcott uses the novel to promote education theories and feminist ideas, many of which appear in her other books. For example, in choosing Rose's wardrobe, Uncle Alec rejects current women's fashions (such as corsets, high heels, veils, and bustles) in favor of less restrictive, healthier clothing. Although he discourages her from the professional study of medicine, he educates her in physiology, a subject her aunts consider inappropriate for girls, so she can understand and take charge of her own health. Rose is prepared for a career as a wife and mother, yet is taught that she must take active, thoughtful control of her fortune so she can use it and social position to the best advantage of the larger community. Written in an age when few women had control of their own money, property, or destinies, Alcott's portrayal of Rose's upbringing is a good deal more revolutionary than 21st-century readers may realize.
The sequel to Eight Cousins is Rose in Bloom (1876), which continues Rose's story into young adulthood, depicting courtship and marriage, poverty and charity, transcendental poetry and prose, and illness and death among her family and friends.
Book Details
Author
Louisa May Alcott
United States
Alcott was an abolitionist and a feminist. In 1860, Alcott began writing for the Atlantic Monthly. When the American Civil War broke out, she served as a nurse in the Union Hospital in Georgetown, DC,...
More on Louisa May AlcottDownload eBooks
Listen/Download Audiobook
- Select Speed
Related books
Oliver's Bride by Margaret O. Oliphant
This is Zoey Ebron and Oliver Gentry's story, and the character development is excellent. Zoey's stepfather insists she must marry her stepbrother whe...
The Widow Barnaby by Frances Trollope
Meet Mrs. Barnaby, a widow with a secret and a thirst for social status. Her quest for a wealthy husband takes her from the country to the city, where...
Meadowlark Basin by B. M. Bower
It is set in the American West, featuring elements of adventure, romance, and frontier life. Bower was known for his ability to bring the rugged and u...
Lady Rose's Daughter by Mary Augusta Ward
It is a historical novel that tells the story of a young girl named Lady Rose, who is the daughter of a famous actress. Lady Rose is brought up in a w...
The Children Of The Abbey by Regina Maria Roche
The Children of the Abbey is a novel by the Irish romantic novelist Regina Maria Roche. It first appeared in 1796, in London in 4 volumes, and related...
The Rise of Silas Lapham by William Dean Howells
The Rise of Silas Lapham is a realist novel by William Dean Howells published in 1885. The story follows the materialistic rise of Silas Lapham from r...
Swiss Family Robinson in Words of One Syllable by Lucy Aikin
The Swiss Family Robinson is a novel by Johann David Wyss, first published in 1812, about a Swiss family of immigrants whose ship en route to Port Jac...
Don Bonifacio by José Milla y Vidaurre
Adéntrate en el cautivador mundo de "Don Bonifacio" de José Milla y Vidaurre, una novela que te sumergirá en un torbellino de emociones y secretos en...
The House without the Key by Earl Derr Biggers
It is a mystery novel. First published in 1925, it is the first in a series of novels featuring the iconic detective, Charlie Chan. The story is set i...
The Alley Cat’s Kitten by Caroline Fuller
This is a captivating story that will whisk readers away into a world where a feline family embarks on a remarkable journey of survival, resilience, a...
Reviews for Eight Cousins
No reviews posted or approved, yet...