“I ask not for any crown
But that which all may win;
Nor try to conquer any world
Except the one within.”
*
“Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.”
–Louisa May Alcott
*
Louisa May Alcott, writer, abolitionist, and Civil War nurse, 1870, George Kendall Warren, vintage albumen print on card mount, from Wikimedia Commons
“I want to do something splendid before I go into my castle, something heroic or wonderful that won't be forgotten after I'm dead. I don't know what, but I'm on the watch for it, and mean to astonish you all some day.”
*
“I have ever so many wishes, but the pet one is to be an artist, and go to Rome, and do fine pictures, and be the best artist in the whole world," was Amy's modest desire.”
Louisa May Alcott
Little Women
*
>>Available @ Marigold Games
With special thanks to Natasha Lehrer Lewis.
Louisa’s Insights:
“One of my earliest memories is of playing with books in my father’s study, -- building towers and bridges of the dictionaries, looking at pictures, pretending to read, and scribbling on blank pages whenever pen or pencil could be found. Many of these first attempts at authorship still exist; and I often wonder if these childish plays did not influence my after-life, since books have been my greatest comfort, castle-building a never-failing delight, and scribbling a very profitable amusement.”
–Louisa May Alcott
*
The first volume of Little Women was published in 1868 by Roberts Brothers. The first printing of 2,000 copies rapidly sold out and became an instant classic. Alcott was perhaps the most successful woman author of her time, whose earnings exceeded Henry James and Herman Melville combined, who were quite popular then. Alcott sold 1,800,000 copies of her works in which none of her issued titles were printed in editions under 10,000 copies.
In 2018, Little Women celebrated its sesquicentennial anniversary, and was retold in films directed by Greta Gerwig and Clare Niederpruem; and a PBS mini-series directed by Vanessa Caswill. Also 2018 was the bicentennial birthday of Emily Brontë, the bicentennial of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and the bicentennial of Jane Austen’s Persuasion and Northanger Abbey.
Louisa May Alcott was an acquaintance of Elizabeth Gaskell, and felt a kinship with the Brontë sisters, whose works are explored in the Quills! Haworth Edition game set.
The Quills! Cooperative Game Series was presented during a breakout session at the JASNA AGM 2017 in Huntington Beach, and featured in the Author’s Book Signing. The Quills! series was also mentioned in the Jane Austen Special Issue, Texas Studies in Literature and Language (2019).
In the gameplay of Quills! Concord Edition I, players engage with the insights and explore the dreams of the March women: Meg, Jo, Amy, Beth, Marmee, Aunt March, and their creator, Louisa May Alcott.
Each of the March women in the Quills! game has a different temperament and life path that is unique to each character–which resonates differently with each reader’s imagination. We all have favorite heroines who inspire us and dreams of our own. This is the heart and soul of the social experience the Quills! Game Series provides for players and fans.
*
“I hope you will be a great deal better, dear, but you must keep watch over your 'bosom enemy', as father calls it, or it may sadden, if not spoil your life. You have had a warning. Remember it, and try with heart and soul to master this quick temper, before it brings you greater sorrow and regret than you have known today.”
*
“You have grown abominably lazy, you like gossip, and waste time on frivolous things, you are contented to be petted and admired by silly people, instead of being loved and respected by wise ones. With money, talent, position, health, and beauty, ah you like that old Vanity!”
‘Stay’ is a charming word in a friend’s vocabulary.
Louisa May Alcott
For 2-4 players, suggested ages 10+
Cooperative, social, playful and dramatically fun!
Explore the Heroines, Friends, Dreams and Insights of Alcott and each of the six key characters featured in Little Women – Jo, Meg, Beth, Amy, Marmee and Aunt March. The Quills! Concord Edition I game set features Butterfly Story Cards for seven heroines to exchange amidst a lace trimmed desk blotter play mat. Additional game elements include rules of play, ribbon roses and inkwell feathers with a drawstring muslin bag.
Each bespoke game is made to order, uniquely crafted by hand and signed as a playable work of art. No special assembly required.
Related Games:
Quills! Concord Edition II: Heroes & Heroines
>>Available @ Marigold Games
"Jo talks about the country where we hope to live sometime—the real country, she means, with pigs and chickens and haymaking. It would be nice, but I wish the beautiful country up there was real, and we could ever go to it," said Beth musingly.
"There is a lovelier country even than that, where we shall go, by-and-by, when we are good enough," answered Meg with her sweetest voice.
"It seems so long to wait, so hard to do. I want to fly away at once, as those swallows fly, and go in at that splendid gate."
"You'll get there, Beth, sooner or later, no fear of that," said Jo. "I'm the one that will have to fight and work, and climb and wait, and maybe never get in after all."
Louisa May Alcott
Chapter 13: Castles in the Air
Little Women
Quills! Concord Edition II was created in celebration of the 150th anniversary of Louisa May Alcott’s cherished novel Little Women, providing an important link to the author’s community of peers whose writings continue to shape American idealism.
Gertrude Stein, Simone De Beauvoir, and Gloria Steinem are among feminists who were inspired by Little Women. Margaret Fuller and Elizabeth Peabody’s writings were equally influential during this important oeuvre in American history, that were appreciated by their male counterparts featured in the Quills! Concord Edition II game set.
“We may accept as an omen for ourselves that it was Isabella who furnished Columbus with the means of coming hither.”
Margaret Fuller
Woman in the Nineteenth Century
*
“If you respect the individuality of a child, and let it have fair play, you gain its confidence. Nothing is so delightful as to feel oneself understood. It is much more delightful than to be admired.”
Elizabeth Palmer Peabody
Education in the Home, the Kindergarten and the Primary School
Related Games:
Quills! Concord Edition I: Little Women
Center: Louisa May Alcott, Clockwise: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, 1855, Benjamin D. Maxham; Margaret Fuller, 1855, Nathaniel Hawthorne 1840, Charles Osgood;, A. Bronson Alcott, and Elizabeth Peabody, from Wikimedia Commons. All other photos by Janine Fron ©2018.
“I have before now experienced that the best way to get a vivid impression and feeling of a landscape is to sit down before it and read, or become otherwise absorbed in thought; for then, when our eyes happen to be attracted to the landscape, you seem to catch Nature at unawares, and see her before she has time to change her aspect.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Passages from the American Note–books
For 2-4 players, suggested ages 13+
Explore the Inspirations, Ideals and Insights of the pioneering Transcendentalist heroes and heroines of Concord, Massachusetts, who shaped American culture with their camaraderie around education, social reforms, feminism, and philosophy–with a deep respect and appreciation for nature, which they uniquely shared in their friendship.
Related Games:
“The same landscape is not the same as seen by poet and plowman. It stands for material benefit to the one, immaterial to the other.”
–A. Bronson Alcott
Tablets
*
In 1868, Louisa wrote Little Women in her bedroom on a uniquely made, folding “shelf” desk her father built for her at Orchard House, the Alcott family home in Concord.
For 2-4 players, suggested ages 13+
The Quills! Concord Edition II game set features Butterfly Story Cards for seven heroes & heroines to exchange amidst a hand painted, prairie grass desk blotter muslin play mat. Additional game elements include rules of play, ribbon roses and inkwell feathers with a matching drawstring muslin bag.
Kindle inspiration from the spirited writings of Bronson Alcott, Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody and Henry David Thoreau. When dramatically shared aloud, a lively chorus born of friendship and progressive ideals comes alive, that still resonates today.
For fans and educators, this playful experience is a real treat.
Related Games:
Then from the flute, untouched by hands,
There came a low, harmonious breath:
For such as he there is no death;
His life the eternal life commands;
Above man’s aims his nature rose.
The wisdom of a just content
Made one small spot a continent
And turned to poetry life’s prose.
‘Thoreau’s Flute’
Louisa May Alcott