Few people know that Alcott’s pen belonged to popular mysterious novels and stories of that time, published under the pseudonym A. M. Barnard or anonymously. Like her heroine Jo March from “Little Women,” Alcott secretly wrote captivating stories about forbidden love, mysterious murders, fateful women, vengeful ghosts, and curses of an ancient witch. This collection brings together the best stories: “The Mysterious Key and What It Opened,” “Under the Mask, or Woman’s Power,” “The Ghost of the Abbot, or The Temptation of Maurice Treharn,” and “Lost in the Pyramid, or The Curse of the Mummy.”