‘Behind a Mask’: The little-known ‘blood and thunder’ thrillers of Louisa May Alcott

See, I’ve known for a while that Louisa May Alcott (yes, the Little Women Alcott) had a secret. Somewhere along the way – maybe in the footnotes of a college textbook or a meandering literary podcast – I’d picked up the fact that Jo March’s creator also wrote pulp fiction. “Blood and thunder” stories, she called them. Sensational tales with opium and bigamy, governesses on the make, and women who were far from angelic (remember sweet Beth at her piano?).

And still, I admit, I never actively sought these stories out. It felt more like literary trivia; like learning that Conan Doyle hated Sherlock Holmes or that RK Narayan self-published Swami and Friends. The sort of thing you register with mild surprise and move on.

Until that sticky, muggy afternoon in Bangkok, when I found myself wandering through Dasa Bookshop – three creaky floors of second-hand books, a spiral staircase, and the kind of musty air-conditioning that feels more like warm breath on your skin. (Go, if you can. It’s worth it.) Tucked between an uninspiring paperback of Jo’s Boys and a lurid-looking Brontë pastiche was a dark, slightly battered hardcover: Behind a Mask: The Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott.

Reader, I gasped. Well, not really, but consider this my own melodramatic...

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