"Eight Cousins" was my favourite Lousia Alcott, too. I notice a strong medical theme or set of imagery in many of these texts - I wonder if it's worth adding in 'Heidi', too, although I've not read it since I was eight or so (and then, I think, in an abridged version. Funny things happen to children's books in translation at times)
One old girl's book of the 'improvement type' which I intensely disliked was 'The Wide Wide World', because the heroine was given (a certain sort of low-church, joyless) piety instead of a personality; though I was amused by the sort where she is sent to her rich British relatives and finds them Ladaeocian, not concerned enough about Sabbath observation, and practically Catholic in their churchmanship. Which might do, if they weren't also characterised as typical mid-nineteenth century respectable Edinburgh business people. I think the author got the Church of Scotland confused with the Cof E.
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One old girl's book of the 'improvement type' which I intensely disliked was 'The Wide Wide World', because the heroine was given (a certain sort of low-church, joyless) piety instead of a personality; though I was amused by the sort where she is sent to her rich British relatives and finds them Ladaeocian, not concerned enough about Sabbath observation, and practically Catholic in their churchmanship. Which might do, if they weren't also characterised as typical mid-nineteenth century respectable Edinburgh business people. I think the author got the Church of Scotland confused with the Cof E.