March

March
Geraldine Brooks

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and Richard and Judy pick.From the author of the acclaimed ‘Year of Wonders’ and ‘People of the Book’, a historical novel and love story set during a time of catastrophe on the front lines of the American Civil War.Set during the American Civil War, ‘March’ tells the story of John March, known to us as the father away from his family of girls in ‘Little Women’, Louisa May Alcott’s classic American novel. In Brooks’s telling, March emerges as an abolitionist and idealistic chaplain on the front lines of a war that tests his faith in himself and in the Union cause when he learns that his side, too, is capable of barbarism and racism. As he recovers from a near-fatal illness in a Washington hospital, he must reassemble the shards of his shattered mind and body, and find a way to reconnect with a wife and daughters who have no idea of the ordeals he has been through.As Alcott drew on her real-life sisters in shaping the characters of her little women, so Brooks turned to the journals and letters of Bronson Alcott, Louisa May’s father, an idealistic educator, animal rights exponent and abolitionist who was a friend and confidante of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. The story spans the vibrant intellectual world of Concord and the sensuous antebellum South, through to the first year of the Civil War as the North reels under a series of unexpected defeats.Like her bestselling ‘Year of Wonders’, ‘March’ follows an unconventional love story. It explores the passions between a man and a woman, the tenderness of parent and child, and the life-changing power of an ardently held belief.

March

Geraldine Brooks

Copyright (#ulink_63c2cf21-793f-55d9-955b-ce5802688b9e)

Fourth Estate

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www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

This edition published by Harper Perennial 2006

First published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate 2005

Copyright © Geraldine Brooks 2005

PS Section copyright © Louise Tucker 2006, except ‘Little Facts’ by

Geraldine Brooks © Geraldine Brooks 2006

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Geraldine Brooks asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007165872

Ebook Edition © MARCH 2010 ISBN: 9780007369225

Version: 2017-11-01

For Darleen and Cassie—by no means little women.

Table of Contents

Cover Page (#u05b926f6-b410-5274-b2c2-bd41b8fdcb97)

Title Page (#u712bf0ed-53ac-5e83-ba8b-a2ef049eb70f)

Copyright (#uc9c2051f-f809-559c-96d4-bf6eac140515)

Dedication (#u80edb024-b884-5874-a441-43eb58642d2f)

PART ONE (#u2c3642fa-a6d5-5a0f-9463-0854b1cf8d87)

CHAPTER ONE Virginia Is a Hard Road (#uaabc6793-c45f-5791-993c-c2dea6830436)

CHAPTER TWO A Wooden Nutmeg (#u67f9187f-4852-584a-a173-749b87d51760)

CHAPTER THREE Scars (#ud209b3c3-1da0-5e23-be03-dfae8d87e5ad)

CHAPTER FOUR A Little Hell (#u752cebc6-59b2-55eb-a07b-1dc4690cbad1)

CHAPTER FIVE A Better Pencil (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX Yankee Leavening (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN Bread and Shelter (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT Learning’s Altar (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE First Blossom (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN Saddleback Fever (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN Tolling Bells (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWELVE Red Moon (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN A Good Kind Man (#litres_trial_promo)

PART TWO (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN Blank Hospital (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN Reunion (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN River of Fire (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Reconstruction (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN State of Grace (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINETEEN Concord (#litres_trial_promo)

Afterword (#litres_trial_promo)

Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)