Six years before she wrote Little Women, Louisa May Alcott, in financial straits, entered Paulines Passion and Punishment, a novelette, in a newspaper contest. Not only did it win the $100 prize, but, published anonymously, it marked the first in the series of blood & thunder tales that would be her livelihood for years. In Behind a Mask, editor Madeleine Stern introduces four Alcott thrillers: Paulines Passion and Punishment, The Mysterious Key, The Abbots Ghost, and the title story, Behind a Mask. First published in one volume in 1975, they are regarded as Alcotts finest work in this genre.