Moods

Published three years before Little Women, this early novel by Louisa May Alcott follows the impulsive, passionate Sylvia as she marries one man while loving another, and must live with the consequences of choices made in youthful confusion. More serious and searching than her famous children’s books, it explores marriage, temperament, and a woman’s inner life with real psychological depth. Alcott regarded it as one of her most personal works. For readers who know only Little Women, Moods offers a fascinating glimpse of her ambitions as a novelist of adult emotion and moral complexity.