(from the dust jacket)
Vanity, greed, lust, deception, hypnosis, homoeroticism, and drugs - these are not the things one has come to associate with Louisa May Alcott. They were, however, subjects with which the author of 'Little Women' was quite comfortable. A staunch feminist who never married, Alcott supported her family with her wildly successful juvenile novels. But when she grew 'tired of providing moral pap for the young,' she turned to writing of a different sort.

A Modern Mephistopheles is the sophisticated and suspenseful story of Felix Canaris , a 19-year-old poet on the brink of starvation. Enter Jasper Helwyze , an older, mysterious man who offers him literary success in exchange for total subjugation. Both Canaris and Helwyze keep their parts of the bargain, and the household--which includes Helwyze's worldly companion Olivia--remains harmonious untill Helwyze forces the poet to take a wife, a beautiful innocent named Gladys who emerges as the herione of the novel.

First published anonymously in 1877, A Modern Mephistopheles was called "unquestionably the work of a genius, powerful in conception, elegant in construction, lofty in tone" by The New Age and " constant intellectual delight" by the Boston Post. Even by today's standards, the book's psychological complexity is striking - especially its scathing depiction of the evils and ambitions of which mankind is capable.

Louisa Amy Alcott was born in 1832 and grewup in a prominent, though not wealthy, family in Concord Massachusetts. Her father , Bronson Alcott , a reformer and educator, founded the utopian community called Fruitlands, but he never amde much money and Louisa's writing became the main source of family income. After success with fairytales, gothic stories, and other fiction, she won international acclaim when Little Women was ublished in 1968. She went on to write many other popular books for young readers, including Little Men (1871), Eight Cousins (1875) , and Jo's Boys (1886). An early feminist and a spokeperson for women's rights, Alcott contracted typhoid while volunteering as a nurse during the Civil War and suffered from ill health for the rest of her life. She died on May 6, 1888, the day of her father's funeral.

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