When we grew up reading Little Women I always enjoyed the literary references even when I didn't understand the background of most of them because I just thought it was fun to be able to do reference with such ease. Now, I recognize more of there references plus I have a copy of Little Women that has footnotes (these are addictive, and now I want that for the rest of the trilogy) for each reference, and I compiled a massive reading list from them. I love reading lists. I cannot really follow them religiously but there is just somethings so addictive and alluring about them.
Little Women features literary references of all sorts: quotes, mention of an author, mention of a work, vague allusion. I organized by type of work and then included a list of authors mentioned by name (their works may or may not also have been referenced in the book) which I'm including here for day one. I only included first names of the obscure authors.
I compiled my lists awhile back, so I hope that they are complete and accurate enough. I've used bold on the authors I've read, and I make a sorry showing today! I cannot vouch for these authors; I just thought a list would be fun to compile of these references.
How many of these authors have you read?
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
Labels: Bookish