The Quiet Little Woman: Tilly's Christmas, Rosa's Tale : Three Enchanting Christmas Stories - Hardcover

Everything about The Quiet Little Woman: A Christmas Story by Louisa May Alcott is heartwarming, starting with the extraordinary tale of its origin. Alcott wrote the story for three girls who emulated Little Women's March sisters by founding their own literary publication, but the magazine was lost for many years; this story is now being published in book form for the first time. The Quiet Little Woman tells the story of Patty, a young girl living hopelessly in an orphanage, who is rescued at Christmas time by a kindly woman named Aunt Jane. Also collected in this small, beautiful (and not coincidentally, Christmas stocking-size) volume are two of Alcott's other holiday stories; one of them, "Rosa's Tale," is a really lovely fable about a horse who speaks at midnight on Christmas Eve.

Newly discovered writing of classic writers is big business, like Alcott's romance The Inheritance, first published in 1997. However, this one is not really a new discovery but, rather, a "re-discovery." Alcott wrote the story for a family magazine of five young readers; then it appeared in 1872 in Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, a six-volume collection of Alcott stories; and then again in 1920 in St Nicholas Magazine. This time we're told it's in a small "stand-alone" volume (except that there are also two more Christmas stories included, presumably to fill up space). The intrepid rediscoverer is Stephen Hines, who also published the best-selling Little House in the Ozarks: The Rediscovered Writings (of Laura Ingalls Wilder) in 1991. He provides notes at the back on the morals of the stories as well as a short Alcott biography. The design is very much a Christmas package in gilt and red. It's a little book, and that word little is in the title and on almost every page. Is it worth reading? The first part of the title story is an elemental Cinderella scenario of the lonely little orphan, who is pure, brave, and slightly disabled (only slightly), the one longing for a loving home but never chosen for adoption. After that, it's all downhill, and the other two stories are precious children's morality tales. Alcott fans will grab the package, but not for long. Hazel Rochman