5.0

Intelligent and scholarly without being at all dry, this biography is in my opinion, an almost perfect telling of the two great lives. As the writer notes - each member of the Alcott family dealt with compromise and failure, yet the whole family was greater than the sum of its parts. Also interesting is the Alcotts' relationships with other American writers, especially Hawthorne, Thoreau, and of course, Bronson's dear friend and Louisa's great mentor Emerson.