Eight Cousins

Summary

A review attributed to the great Henry James at the time of Eight Cousins 's publication called Alcott, "the Thackeray , the Trollope , of the nursery and the school room... she is a satirist". In this 1875 book, Rose - our heroine - has seven boisterous boy cousins and various other repugnant relatives. This tale is of how she strips away the "shams of life" with the help of a burly, honest seaman uncle. James saw, though, that Alcott's gift for writing for children was here worryingly adult-centred, viewing their concerns from the outside and neglecting to show the joys of genuinely childish and fun life. Further, the uncle and niece's sheer viciousness towards their irritating relatives at times prevents us from siding with them.

Table of contents

• Henry James
• Thackeray
• Trollope
• Preface
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Chapter 11
• Chapter 12
• Chapter 13
• Chapter 14
• Chapter 15
• Chapter 16
• Chapter 17
• Chapter 18
• Chapter 19
• Chapter 20
• Chapter 21
• Chapter 22
• Chapter 23
• Chapter 24

More by Louisa M. Alcott

• Little Women
• Good Wives
• Old Fashioned Girl

Other Fiction classics

• Lady Chatterley's Lover — D.H. Lawrence
• Crime and Punishment — Fyodor Dostoevsky
• Billy Budd — Herman Melville
• Ulysses — James Joyce
• Dubliners — James Joyce
• Valperga — Mary Shelley