136 years ago this week, author Louisa May Alcott died.
Born November 29, 1832, Alcott wrote the beloved Little Women, sequels Little Men and Jo’s Boys, as well as numerous other novels and short stories. Among these, a dramatic Faustian tale titled A Modern Mephistopheles, which was her inspiration for another book with similar themes, A Long, Fatal Love Chase.
When I read A Modern Mephistopheles, I had recently been watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer with my sister and couldn’t help but see similarities in some of the descriptions of the Mephistophelean character and Spike’s doomed love for Buffy. This is just one of those quotations, I posted another on my instagram.
Had he been a better man, he would not have sinned; had he been a worse one, he could not have suffered; being what he was, he did both, and, having no one else to study now, looked deeply into himself, and was dismayed at what he saw. For the new love, purer, yet more hopeless than the old one, shone like a star above an abyss, showing him whither he had wandered in the dark.
A Modern Mephistopheles
Alcott died March 6, 1888.
Check out these other posts for more about Louisa May Alcott!
The Second Day of Christmas: A Modern Mephistopheles and Taming a Tartar
I picked this book up, containing two novels by Louisa May Alcott, with the understanding that the first listed story was a sort of first draft of A Long Fatal Love Chase, as its alternate title was A Modern Mephistopheles. However, despite sharing a similar concept, the stories actually diverge wildly enough in their characters…
12 Books by Famous Authors You’ve Never Heard Of
We’ve all heard of them—Crime and Punishment, Treasure Island, Pride and Prejudice, and their fellow classics—but what of the others? The overlooked works by authors of an enduring treasure? It’s a different feeling altogether when you’ve associated an author with one or two works for as long as you’ve known about them and then learn…
Fictitiously Yours 
I’ve only read Little Women. In fact, I just re-read it last year (for our bookclub) for the first time in 50+ years. I think I enjoyed it far more than some of the others in my group. I’ve heard of this one and it might interest me more than her others in the Little Women series.
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It’s definitely hard to live up to Little Women–I found the sequels to be progressively less genuine and more preachy, though I have a special place in my heart for the 1998 Little Men movie. A Modern Mephistopheles is definitely an interesting character study.
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i love love the post
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