The woman who discovered the "blood and guts" dies

Women who uncovered Alcott Novel's dies at age 96

Leona Rostenberg was a rare-book scholar and dealer who discovered in 1942 a series of racy novels written by Louisa May Alcott under a pseudonym. This is Excerpted from a NYT article .

They made their discovery about Louisa May Alcott after being tipped off by a scholar that she might have written works under a pseudonym to pay the rent, but that the pseudonym was mystery.

After seeing a reference to an "A.M. Barnard" in a correspondence between Alcott and a publisher, they knew they had found what - or whom - they had been looking for.

The discovery caused a re-evaluation of Alcott's career. Eventually, one of the lost Alcott works, "A Long Fatal Love Chase," was published.

"It completely changed the way people perceived Louisa May Alcott," Ms. Lustgarten said. "What they knew about was 'Little Women,' and here were 'blood and thunder' tales - meetings in opium dens and things like that. The polar opposite of 'Little Women' in the sense of being more risqué and passionate."