Little Women Literary References
I compiled this from posts from 4 years ago. I think I’d found a list but didn’t find it comprehensive so I made my own based I assume on the references from the copy of Little Women, I had? So if I’m missing anything (and I aimed to include any reference, general and specific, quoted or alluded to) please tell me. I think I’d like to remember to see if I can catch anything from her other works and well as try to get into the habit to do this with more authors.
Also, I think I mostly chose correctly the first time between italics and quotes, but I thought I’d look up to be sure, here is a handy reference for that purpose.
I’ve bolded any authors, works, etc. that I’ve read.
Authors
Bacon
Balzac
Bremer, Frederika
Byron
Columella, Lucius Junius
Cowley, Abraham
Edgeworth, Maria
Goethe
Hegel
Homer
Kant
Keats
Milton
More, Hannah
Raymond, Richard John
Rousseau, Heloise
Schiller
Scott
Shakespeare
Sherwood, Mrs. Mary Martha
Southworth. E.D.E.N.
Tusser, Thomas
Books
A Long Fatal Love Chase by Louisa May Alcott. (I read this ages ago, at least I think I read it in full; it isn’t as scandalous as implied by many, just for her audience at the time; I have, however come across her “Jo March is rebuked by Professor Bhaer writings” which are scandalous).
Corinne by Madame de Staël
David Copperfield
Dombey and Son
Don Quixote
Evelina by Frances Burney (this is the least sappy of the three Burney novels I’ve read and the one I have hitherto decide to keep, edit: I recently purged, rather regret, maybe I can find a prettier copy; the other two I’ve read are Camilla and Cecilia).
Heir of Redclyffe
Ivanhoe. Mom read this aloud to us, but I’m not sure if I’ve read it on my own or not.
Kenilworth
Little Dorrit
Mable on a Midsummer Day by Mary Howitt
Martin Chuzzlewit
Nicholas Nickleby
Odyssey (Telemachus is specifically mentioned)
Old Man and the Sea
Oliver Twist
Patronage by Maria Edgeworth
Pilgrim’s Progress (Dad read this aloud to us a couple times, but I’m not counting that)
Rasselas by Samuel Johnston
Tailor Retailored or Sartur Resartus by Thomas Carlyle
The Bible
The Flirtations of Captain Cavendish (probably Cavendish, or the Patrician at Sea by William Johnson Neale according to this blog)
The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell
The Wide, Wide World by Susan Warner under the pseudonym Elizabeth Wetherell
Tom Brown’s School Days by Thomas Hughs
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Undine and Sintram. Stories by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué
Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith
Poetry and Song
“A Dream of Fair Women” Tennyson
“Bonnie Dundee” Scott
“Come Ye Disconsolate” by Thomas More and Thomas Hastings
“Do You Know the Country” by Goethe in Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship
“Endymion” Keats
“Evelyn Hope” Robert Browning
“Judas Maccabeas” Handel (an oratorio)
“Lakes of Killarney” by Lady (Sydney) Morgan (I couldn’t find any information about this, perhaps the author featured this ballad in a book)
“Land O’ the Leal” by Richard Burns
“Little Jenny Wren”
“Nothing to Wear” (Flora McFlimsey is mentioned)
“The Rainy Day” Longfellow
Plays
Hamlet
Macbeth
Mary Stuart by Schiller
Merchant of Venice
Midsummer Night’s Dream
The Beaux’ Stratagem by George Farquhar
The Rivals by Richard Sheridan
Periodicals
Punch or The London Charivari.
The Rambler. Created by Samuel Johnson
Miscellaneous
Belsham’s Essays.
“Discourse of Sallets.” Essay by John Evelyn.
Greek Myths
“North Wind and the Sun.” Fable from Aesop’s Fables.
Aesop’s Fables
“Steadfast Tin Soldier.” Fairytale by Hans Christian Anderson
“The House that Jack Built.” Nursery rhyme.
The Parent’s Assistant. A collection of children’s stories by Maria Edgeworth