“I don’t want to write a story about
girls! I don’t know anything about girls,” Louisa May Alcott told her
publisher, Mr. Niles. But she was desperate for money. She seemed to be the
only one in her family who could make any money. Niles had asked her to write
about something she knew, instead of the romantic adventure stories she had
been writing. “So I plod away,” Alcott wrote, “though I don’t enjoy this sort
of thing.” It was 1867, and the horrible Civil War was over. Now Alcott could
turn her energy to making money.
Alcott wrote a simple story of life in her
family, their pillow fights on Saturday nights and the amateur (業(yè)余的) plays they performed. “Our experiences may prove interesting, though I
doubt it.” (“Good joke,” she wrote years later.) Her book described her days
growing up with four sisters in a family that had no money. She sketched (勾畫)
a loving mother who took time to be interested in each child, and she told of
the death of a beloved sister. She portrayed her family and friends in her book
Little Women. Finally, in July of 1868, she finished writing. With a
sigh and a headache, she sent off all 102 handwritten pages of her book.
Niles
thought the book was dull, and so did Alcott. But when she received her copies
of the book, Alcott thought it seemed better than expected. “Not a bit
sensational,” she wrote, “but simple and true. We really lived most of it.” Niles asked some girls to read Little Women, and they loved it.
In three months, all the copies of Little
Women had sold. It was already time to print more books! Niles thought he
could sell three or four hundred more copies. “An honest publisher and a lucky
author made a dull book into a golden egg for an ugly duckling,” Alcott wrote
in 1885. Later, with a great sigh of relief, she was able to write, “Paid off
all the debts! Now I feel that I could die in peace. If my head holds out, I’ll
do all I once hoped to do.”
1.Which of
the following would be used to describe Alcott’s book?
A.
funny B.
boring C.
magic D. skillful
2.In which
order did the following happen?
a. Alcott began writing Little Women
b. Niles asked Alcott to write about girls
c. Alcott wrote romantic adventure stories
d. Alcott performed plays with her sisters
e. Niles was not pleased with Alcott’s work.
A. a, b, e, d, c B. d,
c, a, b, e C. c, b, e, d,
a D. d, c, e, b, a
3.When she
handed her first writing in, Niles was _________.
A. sure of her success
B. happy about her work
C. unsatisfied with the work
D. unpleased with the publisher
4.We learn
from the story that, after Little Women sold out, _________.
A. Alcott wrote another book
B. some girls started to read the book
C. Alcott paid off all her billsD. Niles published hundreds of books girls liked
