Moods

“…with a stealthy step, an assured smile, she went to him and touched his hand…”



Moods reveals a very ambitious young Louisa May Alcott finding her voice as a writer and addressing a difficult and taboo subject in the 1860s: marriage and divorce. 


Sylvia Yule, a moody, mercurial young woman, marries one of her brother's two best friends, only to discover she has chosen the wrong man.


The story begins as Sylvia embarks on a river camping trip with her brother and his two friends, both of whom fall in love with her. (Were these rival suitors, modeled on Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau?) 


It is the proto-feminist account of a willful and impulsive young woman who meets—and loses—the one man she could have truly loved. Their mutual attraction was sexual; and the otherwise eminently satisfactory man Sylvia does marry never measures up. 


She finally tells him he must be a friend rather than a lover.



Starting as a romance, Moods ends as a coming of age Bildungsroman. 


Sylvia goes from a girl to a woman, learning who is she is, and who she is willing to be for the sake of others. 


LOUISA MAY ALCOTT (1832-1888) was a prolific and multi-talented American writer. Amongst her works are passionate, fiery novels, moralistic and wholesome stories for children, philosophical essays and letters. She is best known as the creator of the classic novel Little Women, and its sequels: Good Wives, Little Men, and Jo's Boys.