Transcendental Wild Oats

Transcendental Wild Oats: A Chapter from an Unwritten Romance is a prose satire written by Louisa May Alcott, about her family's involvement with the Transcendentalist community Fruitlands[1] in the early 1840s.

Alcott depicts her father as dominated by his more forceful partner, and both men as feckless and impractical dreamers.

The men of the community spend their time in pointless debates while Sister Hope works from dawn to dusk to maintain their existence.

Abel is crushed by the failure of the enterprise; after days of despair he begins to eat again only when he realizes that his family needs him.

[7] Alcott's view of male arrogance and female exploitation in this piece is paralleled in her novel Work, published in the same year as Transcendental Wild Oats.