Moods

Louisa May Alcott wrote this romantic novel in 1864, four years before Little Women made her famous, and it shows a darker, more searching side of her talent. Sylvia Yule is a bright, impulsive young woman whose feelings swing without warning, and that restlessness sets the whole story in motion. She loves the fiery idealist Adam Warwick but marries the gentler Geoffrey Moor, a man she admires without passion, and the mismatch slowly pulls all three lives out of shape. Taking a line from Emerson about the tyranny of moods as her theme, Alcott treats marriage, temperament, and a woman’s right to choose with real seriousness. A free PDF and EPUB edition is available here.