Alcott could conjure up. The other included a partner whose life strongly suggested the episodes of a sensational novel. In her editorial and publishing negotiations therefore, A. M. Barnard—whether she was aware of it or not—was among kindred spirits.

            “Wrote two tales for L.,” Louisa noted in her 1862 journal. “I enjoy romancing to suit myself; and though my tales are silly, they are not bad; and my sinners always have a good spot somewhere. I hope it is good drill for fancy and language, for I can do it fast; and Mr. L. says my tales are so ‘dramatic, vivid, and full of plot,’ they are just what he wants.” And a few months later: “Rewrote the last story, and sent it to L., who wants more than I can send him.”

            1862 was the year of Antietam and Fredericksburg. It was not for the home circle alone that so-called family newspapers and cheap paperbacks were printed, but for soldiers in camp who could while away tedious hours between battles by escaping to an ancestral estate in Britain or a tropical paradise in Cuba. As the war gathered momentum, the market for such literature widened and with it the need for new authors and new stories.

 
            The "L.” of Louisa’s journal, to whom she offered '‘Pauline’s Passion” in competition for the announced hundred-dollar prize, was well aware of this need. Frank Leslie,28 publisher of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, had his hand on the public pulse. He had begun life as Henry Carter, wood engraver in England, adopted the pseudonym of Frank Leslie, and migrated to America. Ruddy, black- bearded, aggressive, dynamic, he had in 1855 launched his Illustrated Newspaper, a project that was to make him a power on New York’s Publishers’ Row. With its graphic cuts of murders and assassinations, prizefights and fires, the weekly was to dominate the field of illustrated journalism for nearly .three-quarters of a century. It sported just enough text to float the pictures instead of just enough pictures to float the text. Thanks to a clever and ingenious device, Leslie was able to produce his pictures—sometimes mammoth double-page engravings —with unprecedented speed. Thanks to his editorial staff, he was able to select text that titillated an ever-expanding readership whether it gathered at hearth or campfire.

            It was E. G. Squier who wrote to Louisa May Alcott in December, 1862, when she herself was nursing at the Union Hotel Hospital: “Your tale ‘Pauline’ this morning was awarded the $100 prize for the best short tale for Mr. Leslie’s newspaper, and you will hear from him in due course in reference to what you may regard as an essential part of the matter. I presume that it will be on hand for those little Christmas purchases. Allow me to congratulate you on your success and to recommend you to submit whatever you may hereafter have of the same sort for Mr. Leslie’s acceptance.”

            E. G. Squier, scholar-archaeologist serving temporarily as a Leslie editor, was married to another Leslie protegee who could have served as prototype for every one of Louisa’s femmes fatales. Miriam Florence Squier30 had been born in New Orleans in 1836, and throughout a stormy, flamboyant, and successful life in the North she remained a southern belle. Much of that life would have fascinated A. M. Barnard. Between Miriam’s first two marriages she had gone barnstorming with Lola Montez under the stage name of Minnie Montez. As knowledgeable editor of the House of Leslie she sported a blue stocking on one leg, but her other leg was encased in a stocking as scarlet as any worn by Pauline Valary or Jean Muir.