Author:Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott's enchanting Christmas stories, presented in a beautiful hardcover edition perfect for giving as a gift.
A Merry Christmas collects the best holiday stories of Louisa May Alcott, from the yuletide festivities of Marmee and her 'little women' to the moving 'What Love Can Do'. Deeply influenced by real-life events, including characters based on Alcott's family members and drawing from her experiences participating in the suffrage and abolitionist movements, these stories have the authentic texture and detail of Christmas in nineteenth-century America.
Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 1832. Her family later moved to Concord, Massachusetts, where Alcott was influenced by their neighbours Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau. At a young age, Louisa took on some of the family's financial burdens, working as a domestic, a teacher, and a writer. In 1868 and 1869, fame and fortune came with the publication of Little Women. The author of many novels and an active campaigner for temperance and women's suffrage, Alcott died in 1888.
Dazzling. Profound and urgent
—— ObserverThe supreme novelist of his generation
—— Sunday TimesHe remains at the top of his game - assured, accomplished and ambitious
—— Daily TelegraphRichly laden. McEwan pulls out all the stops. A rich book, sensuous and thoughtful. McEwan has found in Saturday the right form to showcase his dazzling talents
—— Sunday TelegraphA book of great moral maturity, beautifully alive to the fragility of happiness and all forms of violence... Everyone should read Saturday... Artistically, morally and politically, he excels
—— The TimesIt's the good writing and the truthful and convincing way of rendering consciousness that makes Saturday so engrossing
—— Colm ToibinSaturday is wonderfully involving and affecting on every page. Everybody with any interest in contemporary literature will want to read it at once
—— Evening StandardA brilliant novel.It is McEwan writing on absolute top form
—— Daily MailRefreshing and engrossing, dense with revelation. Superb
—— Independent on SundayWritten with superb exactness, complex, suspenseful and humane, this novel.reinforces his status as the supreme novelist of his generation
—— Sunday TimesA darkly disturbing novel
—— Hull Daily MailA terrifying, yet grimly realistic portrait of near-future America
—— Brechin AdvertiserThought-provoking, and at times brutal, this thriller will surely be the basis of many discussions about the nature of society and the times we live in
—— Irish ExaminerPeyton Marshall is a writer of intelligence and keen observation with a great future. GOODHOUSE is a startling debut. In James, she has created a compelling and convincing hero for the all-too-probable dark times ahead
—— A L KENNEDYVery arty, and strangely uplifting
—— Evening StandardHilarious, loving and deadly serious
—— Berlingske TidendeSome pieces of literature, no matter how great an effort you make as a critic, cannot be opened or captured in a way that does justice to the work. That’s how I feel about Helle Helle’s new and unusually precious novel... Most of the sentences are small works of art, containing a whole story in themselves
—— WeekendavisenThis Should be Written in the Present Tense is an excellent novel, yet another sleek and nonchalant masterpiece from Helle Helle
—— InformationHelle Helle has written a captivating novel about Dorte Hansen, who sleepwalks through life, letting chance rule
—— PolitikenA beautiful tale examining the processes of life
—— Good Book GuideEschewing a conventional narrative, this absorbing novel deceptively contains a crackling energy within its understated, artful prose
—— Francesca Angelini , Sunday Times