Six years before she wrote Little Women, and in financial straits, Louisa May Alcott entered Pauline's Passion and Punishment, a novelette, in a newspaper contest. Not only did it win the $100 prize, but, published anonymously, it marked the first of the series of blood & thunder tales that would provide her livelihood for years. For as she said, They are easy to 'compoze' & are better paid than moral...works. The gruesome, passionate stories reveal...