A Modern Cinderella

Louisa May Alcott's A Modern Cinderella is an early collection of stories from the beloved author of Little Women, showing her gift for domestic fiction, moral feeling, and quietly independent young women. The title story, first published in The Atlantic Monthly in October 1860, reimagines the Cinderella pattern in a New England household, replacing castles and fairy magic with family duty, patience, kindness, and the dignity of ordinary work. Long before Little Women made Alcott famous, these stories already display her interest in girls and women who meet hardship with intelligence, generosity, and moral courage.Collected with "Debby's Debut," "Brothers," and "Nelly's Hospital," A Modern Cinderella offers a revealing look at Alcott's early fiction and the themes that would later define her career. Here are young women learning how to judge character, resist vanity, value useful work, and find strength in affection, conscience, and self-respect. This SMK Books edition presents a classic collection for readers of Louisa May Alcott, nineteenth-century American fiction, women's domestic fiction, classic short stories, moral fiction, and early American literature.