by Noella Noelophile®
(Royalty-free image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay.)
With torrential rains happening in California, now seems like a great time to recommend a good book.
With a bit of mystery about it.
Our library has The Ultimate Christmas Collection, with Louisa May Alcott listed as the author–but no editor named.
And it includes a number of stories and poems by more than a hundred classic authors, arranged in alphabetical order.
This is both a great anthology, and a look back at life during the Christmas season, more than a century ago.
(Royalty-free image by Conger Design from Pixabay.)
Ranging in tone
Unlike today’s Christmas content, the tone of the included stories runs a full gamut. There’s George Ade’s humorous “The Set of Poe”; Thomas Nelson Page’s thought-provoking “My Cousin Fanny”; and the dark realism of L.M. Montgomery’s “The Red Room”.
My personal favorites, so far, are Lucy Maude Montgomery’s lighter stories, “A Christmas Inspiration” and “The Falsoms’ Christmas Dinner”, along with Marjorie Pickthal’s inspirational fable “The Worker in Sandalwood”. Thomas Nelson Page’s “A Captured Santa Claus” offers a look into the realities of families living during the Civil War, while O. Henry’s “A Chaparral Christmas Gift” is an interesting contrast to his much-better-known “Gift of the Magi”.
Also included is E.T.A. Hoffmann’s 1816 Gothic tale, “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King”, which is fascinating to read in its entirety and spot the differences between the beloved Christmas ballet and the original story!
The “mystery” element? Louisa May Alcott died in 1888. While her works are included here, a number of the other stories and poems are listed as first being published in the early twentieth century. She could not have been the editor.
Oh well. Christmas is a good time for secret Santas and mysterious gifts.