Editing Louisa May Alcott (section)

=== Sensation and adult fiction ===
Alcott preferred writing [[Sensation novel|sensation stories and novels]] more than [[Domestic realism|domestic fiction]], confiding in her journal, "I fancy 'lurid' things".<ref>{{Harvnb|louisamayalcott.net|}}; {{Harvnb|Palgrave Macmillan}}; {{Harvnb|Eiselein|Phillips|2016|p=5}}</ref> They were influenced by the works of other writers such as [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe]], Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, and Nathaniel Hawthorne.{{Sfn|Eiselein|Phillips|2016|p=5}} The stories follow themes of [[incest]], murder, suicide, psychology, secret identities, and sensuality.<ref>{{Harvnb|Golden|2003|p=10-11}}; {{Harvnb|Reisen|2009|p=167}}; {{Harvnb|Sneller|2013|p=45}}</ref> Her characters are often involved in [[opium]] experimentation or mind control and sometimes experience [[insanity]], with males and females contending for dominance.{{Sfn|Stern|2000|pp=32, 44}} The female characters push back against the [[Culture of Domesticity|Cult of Domesticity]] and explore its counter ideals, [[Culture of Domesticity#Virtues|Real Womanhood]].{{Sfn|Sneller|2013|pp=41–42, 45}} Important to Alcott's income because they paid well,{{Sfn|Sneller|2013|p=45}} these sensation stories were published in ''[[The Flag of Our Union]]'', ''Frank Leslie's Chimney Corner'', and ''[[Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper]]''.{{Sfn|Delamar|1990|p=71, 73, 205–206}} Her thrillers were usually published anonymously or with the pseudonym A. M. Barnard.<ref>{{Harvnb|Reisen|2009|p=208}}; {{Harvnb|Sneller|2013|p=44}}</ref> J. R. Elliott of ''The Flag'' repeatedly asked her to contribute pieces under her own name, but she continued using pseudonyms.{{Sfn|Rostenberg in Stern|1998|pp=76–77}} Louisa May Alcott scholar [[Leona Rostenberg]] suggests that she published these stories under pseudonyms to preserve her reputation as an author of realistic and juvenile fiction.{{Sfn|Rostenberg in Stern|1998|p=75}} Researching for his dissertation in 2021, doctorate candidate Max Chapnick discovered a possible new pseudonym, E. H. Gould.<ref>{{Harvnb|Mello-Klein|2023}}; {{Harvnb|Chapnick|The Conversation US}}; {{Harvnb|Creamer|2023}}</ref> Chapnick found a story referenced in Alcott's personal records in the ''Olive Branch,'' published under the name E.H. Gould.{{Sfn|Mello-Klein|2023}} While Chapnick is uncertain if the pseudonym conclusively belongs to Alcott,{{Sfn|Chapnick|The Conversation US}} other stories he found include references to people and places in her life.{{Sfn|Creamer|2023}}

[[American studies]] professor Catherine Ross Nickerson credits Alcott with creating one of the earliest works of [[detective fiction]] in American literature—preceded only by [[Edgar Allan Poe]]'s "[[The Murders in the Rue Morgue]]" and his other [[Auguste Dupin]] stories—with her 1865 thriller "V.V., or Plots and Counterplots." The story, which she published anonymously, concerns a Scottish aristocrat who tries to prove that a mysterious woman has killed his fiancée and cousin. The detective on the case, Antoine Dupres, is a parody of Poe's Dupin who is less concerned with solving the crime than in setting up a way to reveal the solution with a dramatic flourish.{{sfn|Ross Nickerson|2010|p=31}} Alcott's [[Gothic fiction|gothic thrillers]] remained undiscovered until the 1940s and were not published in collections until the 1970s.<ref>{{Harvnb|Franklin|1999}}; {{Harvnb|MacDonald|1983|p=72}};  {{Harvnb|Reisen|2009|p=208}}; {{Harvnb|Sneller|2013|p=44}}; {{Harvnb|Stern|2000|pages=33, 43}}</ref>

Alcott's adult novels were not as popular as she wished them to be.{{Sfn|Delamar|1990|p=204}} They lack the optimism of her juvenile fiction{{Sfn|MacDonald|1983|p=72}} and explore difficult marriages, women's rights, and conflict between men and women.<ref>{{Harvnb|MacDonald|1983|p=97}}; {{Harvnb|Delamar|1990|pages=204–206}}</ref>