Behind a Mask was originally published in The Flag of Our Union in 1866.[1] Later, in 1975, Madeleine B. Stern republished the story under Alcott's name with a collection of her other pieces.[2] The republication of the work engendered new interest among literary critics; according to Christine Doyle Francis, it "stimulated the reconsideration of [Alcott's] career" in the period since.[1]
This story belongs with many other thrillers and mysteries that Alcott published under the pseudonym A. M. Barnard.[3] Of all her stories of femme fatales, Behind a Mask is considered Alcott's masterpiece in the genre of sensation fiction.[4] Critic Christine Doyle Francis describes the novel as "ow[ing] most to Alcott's reading of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre and William Thackery's Vanity Fair. In this light, Jean Muir becomes a subversion of the classic governess character in protest to the British class system and in praise of America as a "land of opportunity".[1]
