Eight Cousins

"Eight Cousins, or The Aunt-Hill" was published in 1875 by American novelist Louisa May Alcott. It is the story of Rose Campbell, a lonely and sickly girl who has been recently orphaned and must now reside with her maiden aunts, the matriarchs of her wealthy Boston family. When Rose's guardian, Uncle Alec, returns from abroad, he takes over her care. Through his unorthodox theories about child-rearing, and as she finds her place in her family of seven boy cousins and numerous aunts and uncles, Rose becomes happier and healthier. She also makes friends with Phebe, her aunts' young housemaid, whose cheerful attitude in the face of poverty helps Rose to understand and value her own good fortune.

Major themes

Each chapter describes an adventure in Rose's life, as she learns to help herself and others make good choices. Rose must begin to define for herself her role as a young woman in her family, as the only girl in her generation, and as an heiress in society, as she becomes acquainted with other daughters of Boston's elite families.

Without a mother for most of her life, Rose looks to her many aunts, her friends, and the housemaid Phebe as feminine role models. At the same time, this young girl, presumably at the onset of puberty (she is 13), who has just lost a beloved father, is suddenly confronted with a male guardian and seven male cousins, none of whom she has ever met before. Rose must begin to define herself as a female in company with and contrast to the males in her family. It is no accident (the deliberate pun notwithstanding) that the title of the book includes the collective images of both the male and the female elements in the story.

As do all of Alcott's books for young people, the story takes a high moral tone. Various chapters illustrate the evils of cigar-smoking, "yellowback" novels, high fashion, billiards, patent nostrums, and so on, while promoting exercise, a healthy diet, and wholesome experiences of many kinds for girls as well as boys. Alcott uses the novel to promote educational theories and feminist ideas, many of which appear in her other books. For example, Uncle Alec, in choosing a wardrobe for Rose, rejects current women's fashions, such as corsets, high heels, veils, and bustles, in favour of less restrictive and healthier clothing. Although he discourages her from the professional study of medicine, Uncle Alec educates Rose in physiology, a subject her aunts consider inappropriate for girls, so that she can understand and take charge of her own health. Rose is prepared for a career as a wife and mother, yet is taught that she must take active and thoughtful control of her fortune so that she may use her money and social position to the best advantage of the larger community. Written in an age when few women had control of their own money, property, or indeed their destinies, Alcott's portrayal of Rose’s upbringing is a good deal more revolutionary than we in the 21st century may realize.

The sequel to "Eight Cousins" is entitled "Rose in Bloom" (1876), and continues the story into Rose's young adulthood, depicting courtship and marriage, poverty and charity, transcendental poetry and prose, illness and death among her family and friends.

Characters

* Rose Campbell: The central character of the novel. She is the daughter of the recently deceased George Campbell, one of the six Campbell brothers who are nephews of Aunts Plenty and Peace Campbell. (The Campbells, wealthy residents of Boston, are of Scotch descent and some of them are engaged in the China trade.) Rose, 13, is a pretty and sweet-natured child without marked talents of any kind. She has never known her mother and has lived apart from the rest of the Campbell family all her life. As the story opens, she is mourning the death of her father and awaiting with apprehension the arrival of her unknown guardian, Alec Campbell.

The Aunts of the “Aunt-hill:”

* Plenty Campbell: Maiden great-aunt of Rose and matriarch of the family. Aunt Plenty is chatelaine of the ancestral house in Boston, which is “a capital old mansion … full of all manner of odd nooks, charming rooms, and mysterious passages. Windows broke out in unexpected places, little balconies overhung the garden most romantically, and there was a long upper hall full of curiosities from all parts of the world … “

* Peace Campbell: Maiden sister of Plenty. An invalid, she has a tragic history. Her lover died hours before their wedding, and “gentle Peace” never recovered from the blow. Universally beloved by the family, she is the Mary to Aunt Plenty’s Martha.

* Myra Campbell: Widow of one of the Campbell brothers – whose name we never learn. Myra is a gloomy, self-absorbed hypochondriac, obsessed with medicines and mortality. Her presence is tolerated rather than welcomed by the rest of the family. She is the mother of the only other female Campbell cousin, Caroline, who died young – possibly “dosed to death” – inadvertently poisoned with patent medicines by her mother.

* Jane Humphries Campbell: Wife of Uncle Mac, and mother of Rose’s cousins Mac and Steve. Aunt Jane is scary – a stern disciplinarian, utterly lacking a sense of humor. But she is completely reliable. Her bark is worse than her bite, and Rose comes to like and trust her.

* Clara Campbell: Wife of Uncle Stephen, who is absent in India. Clara is a social butterfly, completely absorbed in Boston’s high society. She looks forward to sponsoring Rose’s debut in a few years’ time and secretly plans that Rose shall marry her son Charlie.

* Jessie Campbell: Wife of Uncle Jem, the sea captain. Jessie has raised four sons – Archie, the twins Will and Geordie, and the baby of the family, Jamie – almost without the assistance of her husband, who is always away at sea. Steady, wise, and loving, Jessie is Rose’s favorite aunt and the nearest substitute she has to a mother. Jessie is the aunt most trusted by Rose’s guardian, Uncle Alec.

The Campbell brothers, uncles of Rose:

* Alec Campbell: Nephew of Aunts Plenty and Peace, and the principal male character of the story. A sea-faring doctor, he became Rose’s guardian when her father George Campbell died. He has never married; the great love of his life was Rose’s mother, who chose to marry his brother George. Alec has “advanced” ideas about child-rearing, which he implements in so gentle and loving a fashion that Rose is restored to health and happiness in spite of her fears. The aunts are nervous about (or even opposed to) some of Alec’s ideas, but they come to trust him implicitly.

* Mac Campbell: Husband of Jane, and father of Rose’s cousins Mac and Steve. He is engaged in the China trade and has a warehouse on the Bay full of Oriental treasures. A trifle henpecked by his masterful wife, he spends most of his time in his counting-house. He is very fond of Rose and secretly hopes that she will marry one of his sons.

* Jem (James) Campbell: Husband of Jessie, and father of Rose’s cousins Archie, Will, Geordie, and Jamie. Jem is a sea captain and makes a surprise appearance toward the end of the book.

* Stephen Campbell: Husband of Clara, and father of Rose’s cousin Charlie. His profession is never specified. He lives in India, having been driven from home by his distaste for Clara’s propensity for high society. Stephen never makes a personal appearance in "Eight Cousins" or its sequel, "Rose in Bloom", although in the latter story, Rose meets Uncle Stephen in India while on her world tour with her guardian.

* George Campbell: Recently deceased father of Rose, for whom she grieves deeply. Uncle Alec and he had a fall-out because they both loved the same woman, but years later George got sick and, in his deathbed, he asked Alec to take care of young Rose.

There is a sixth uncle, deceased husband of Aunt Myra, who is never named.

The cousins, in order of age:

* Archibald (Archie) Campbell: Eldest son of Jem and Jessie. Eldest of all the cousins, sixteen years of age, of steady and thoughtful character, he is the Chief, much respected by all the boys and an “older brother” figure to Rose.

* Charles C. Campbell (Charlie): Also known as Prince Charlie, the “flower of the family,” considered the most handsome, talented, and promising of the lot. He is the spoiled only child of Stephen and Clara – spoiled by his too-indulgent mother, with no father present to give him guidance. Charlie and Archie are inseparable friends and lead the way in all exploits.

* Alexander Mackenzie Campbell (Mac): The elder son of Mac and Jane. Known as the Bookworm, or simply “the Worm,” Mac always has his nose in a book and is regarded as the wisest and most learned of the cousins, although, through absent-mindedness and lack of interest, deficient in basic social skills.

* Stephen Campbell (Steve): Younger brother of Mac. A good-natured though rather conceited dandy, he idolizes Charlie and copies him in everything, not always to his own advantage.

* William and George Campbell (Will and Geordie): Twin sons of Jem and Jessie. With Jamie, the youngest, they are the “rug rats” of the group, always willing spear-carriers in whatever drama is going on.

* James Campbell (Jamie):Youngest son of Jem and Jessie. Six years old, the much-loved but unspoiled baby of the family.

Other characters:

* Phebe Moore: Housemaid of Aunts Plenty and Peace, a young girl from the orphanage employed on trial at the opening of the story. Lonely Rose befriends Phebe and then “adopts” her as a sister, teaches her to read and write, admires Phebe’s marked musical talent and upright character, and includes her in all aspects of her life as Phebe becomes her personal maid. At a time in our social history when it was unusual for members of a wealthy household to develop close personal relationships with “the help,” this is a testament to the sweetness of Rose’s unspoiled character. Phebe is destined, in the sequel "Rose in Bloom", to become a gifted professional singer, save the life of Uncle Alec, and marry Archie Campbell, the eldest cousin.

* Debby: Bad-tempered but good-hearted cook in Aunt Plenty’s household.

* Annabelle Bliss: Friend of Rose, nicknamed “Ariadne Blish” by the boys. She is “the model child of the neighborhood,” daughter of a prominent Boston family whom the aunts consider suitable for Rose to know. Alcott frequently satirized fashionable, empty-headed girls in her novels. Annabelle is a benign example of the species, kind-hearted and morally pure but intellectually lacking. In "Rose in Bloom", Annabelle makes a surprising marriage.

* Mother Atkinson: Kindly doyenne of the wholesome mountain household (location unspecified, but probably in Maine or New Hampshire), known as Cosy Corner, where Rose and various family members spend a memorable summer. In the 19th century, New Englanders who could afford to went to the mountains or the seashore for the fresher, cooler air considered sovereign for physical and mental complaints.