Louisa May Alcott (; November 29, 1832March 6, 1888) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet best known as the author of the novel ''

Little Women ''Little Women'' is a coming-of-age novel written by American novelist Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888). Alcott wrote the book, originally published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869, at the request of her publisher. The story follows the lives ...

'' (1868) and its sequels ''

Little Men ''Little Men,'' or ''Life at Plumfield with Jo's Boys,'' is a children's novel by American author Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888), which was first published in 1871 by Roberts Brothers. The book reprises characters from her 1868–69 two-volume ...

'' (1871) and ''

Jo's Boys ''Jo's Boys, and How They Turned Out: A Sequel to "Little Men"'' is a novel by American author Louisa May Alcott, first published in 1886. The novel is the final book in the unofficial ''Little Women'' series. In it, Jo's children, now grown, ar ...

'' (1886). Raised in New England by her transcendentalist parents,

Abigail May Abigail "Abba" Alcott (née May; October 8, 1800 – November 25, 1877) was an American activist for several causes and one of the first paid social workers in the state of Massachusetts. She was the wife of transcendentalist Amos Bronson Al ...

and

Amos Bronson Alcott Amos Bronson Alcott (; November 29, 1799 – March 4, 1888) was an American teacher, writer, philosopher, and reformer. As an educator, Alcott pioneered new ways of interacting with young students, focusing on a conversational style, and av ...

, she grew up among many well-known intellectuals of the day, such as

Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champ ...

Nathaniel Hawthorne Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was an American novelist and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion. He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, from a family long associated with that t ...

Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading Transcendentalism, transcendentalist, he is best known for his book ''Walden'', a reflection upon simple living in natural su ...

, and

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator. His original works include "Paul Revere's Ride", ''The Song of Hiawatha'', and ''Evangeline''. He was the first American to completely transl ...

. Alcott's family suffered from financial difficulties, and while she worked to help support the family from an early age, she also sought an outlet in writing. She began to receive critical success for her writing in the 1860s. Early in her career, she sometimes used pen names such as A. M. Barnard, under which she wrote lurid short stories and

sensation novel The sensation novel, also sensation fiction, was a literary genre of fiction that achieved peak popularity in Great Britain in the 1860s and 1870s.I. Ousby ed., ''The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English'' (1995) p. 844 Its literary forebears i ...

s for adults that focused on passion and revenge. Published in 1868, ''

'' is set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in

Concord, Massachusetts Concord () is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. At the 2020 census, the town population was 18,491. The United States Census Bureau considers Concord part of Greater Boston. The town center is near where the conflu ...

, and is loosely based on Alcott's childhood experiences with her three sisters, Abigail May Alcott Nieriker,

Elizabeth Sewall Alcott Elizabeth Sewall "Lizzie" Alcott (June 24, 1835 – March 14, 1858) was one of the two younger sisters of Louisa May Alcott. She was born in 1835 and died at the age of 22 from scarlet fever. Biography She was originally named Elizabeth ''Peabo ...

, and

Anna Alcott Pratt Anna Bronson Alcott Pratt (March 16, 1831 – July 17, 1893) was the elder sister of American novelist Louisa May Alcott. She was the basis for the character Margaret "Meg" of '' Little Women'' (1868), her sister's classic, semi-autobiographic ...

. The novel was well-received at the time and is still popular today among both

children A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger ...

and adults. It has been adapted many times to stage, film, and television. Alcott was an abolitionist and a

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

and remained unmarried throughout her life. All her life she was active in such reform movements as temperance and women's suffrage. She died from a stroke, two days after her father, in Boston on March 6, 1888.

Early life

Louisa May Alcott was born on November 29, 1832, in Germantown, which is now part of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on her father's 33rd birthday. She was the daughter of transcendentalist and educator

and social worker Abby May and the second of four daughters: Anna Bronson Alcott was the eldest;

and

Abigail May Alcott Abigail May Alcott Nieriker (July 26, 1840 – December 29, 1879) was an American artist and the youngest sister of Louisa May Alcott. She was the basis for the character AmyDinitia SmithFrom Alcott, a Parable for a Spirited Niece."The New York T ...

were the two youngest. As a child, she was a tomboy who preferred boys’ games. The family moved to Boston in 1834, where Alcott's father established an experimental school and joined the Transcendental Club with

and

. Bronson Alcott's opinions on education and tough views on child-rearing as well as his moments of mental instability shaped young Alcott's mind with a desire to achieve perfection, a goal of the transcendentalists. His attitudes towards Alcott's wild and independent behavior, and his inability to provide for his family, created conflict between Bronson Alcott and his wife and daughters. Abigail resented her husband's inability to recognize her sacrifices and related his thoughtlessness to the larger issue of the inequality of sexes. She passed this recognition and desire to redress wrongs done to women on to Louisa. In 1840, after several setbacks with the school, the Alcott family moved to a cottage on of land, situated along the Sudbury River in

. The three years they spent at the rented Hosmer Cottage were described as mwod:idyllic, idyllic. By 1843, the Alcott family moved, along with six other members of the Consociate Family, to the Utopian Fruitlands (transcendental center), Fruitlands community for a brief interval in 1843–1844. After the collapse of the Utopian Fruitlands, they moved on to rented rooms and finally, with Abigail May Alcott's inheritance and financial help from Emerson, they purchased a homestead in Concord, Massachusetts, Concord. They moved into the home they named "The Wayside, Hillside" on April 1, 1845, but had moved on by 1852 when it was sold to

who renamed it The Wayside. Moving 22 times in 30 years, the Alcotts returned to Concord once again in 1857 and moved into Orchard House, a two-story clapboard farmhouse, in the spring of 1858. Louisa May Alcott

Alcott's early education included lessons from the naturalist

who inspired her to write ''Thoreau's Flute'' based on her time at Walden Pond. Most of the education she received though, came from her father who was strict and believed in "the sweetness of self-denial." She also received some instruction from writers and educators such as

, Margaret Fuller, and Julia Ward Howe, all of whom were family friends. She later described these early years in a newspaper sketch entitled "Transcendental Wild Oats." The sketch was reprinted in the volume ''Silver Pitchers'' (1876), which relates the family's experiment in "plain living and high thinking" at Fruitlands. Poverty made it necessary for Alcott to go to work at an early age as a teacher, seamstress, governess, domestic helper, and writer. Her sisters also supported the family, working as seamstresses, while their mother took on social work among the Irish immigrants. Only the youngest, Abigail, was able to attend public school. Due to all of these pressures, writing became a creative and emotional outlet for Alcott. Her first book was ''Flower Fables'' (1849), a selection of tales originally written for Ellen Emerson, daughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Alcott is quoted as saying "I wish I was rich, I was good, and we were all a happy family this day" and was driven in life not to be poor. In 1847, she and her family served as safe house, station masters on the Underground Railroad, when they housed a fugitive slave for one week and had discussions with Frederick Douglass. Alcott read and admired the "Declaration of Sentiments", published by the Seneca Falls Convention on women's rights, advocating for women's suffrage and became the first woman to register to vote in

in a school board election. The 1850s were hard times for the Alcotts, and in 1854 Louisa found solace at the The Boston Theatre, Boston Theatre where she wrote The Rival Prima Donnas, which she later burned due to a quarrel between the actresses on who would play what role. At one point in 1857, unable to find work and filled with such despair, Alcott contemplated suicide. During that year, she read Elizabeth Gaskell's biography of Charlotte Brontë and found many parallels to her own life. In 1858, her younger sister Elizabeth died, and her older sister Anna married a man named John Pratt. This felt, to Alcott, to be a breaking up of their sisterhood.

Literary success

As an adult, Alcott was an abolitionist and a feminist. In 1860, Alcott began writing for the ''Atlantic Monthly''. When the American Civil War, Civil War broke out, she served as a nurse in the Union Hospital in Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown, District of Columbia, DC, for six weeks in 1862–1863. She intended to serve three months as a nurse, but halfway through she contracted typhoid fever and became deathly ill, though she eventually recovered. Her letters homerevised and published in the Boston anti-slavery paper ''Commonwealth'' and collected as ''Hospital Sketches'' (1863, republished with additions in 1869)brought her first critical recognition for her observations and humor. This was her first book and inspired by her army experience. She wrote about the mismanagement of hospitals and the indifference and callousness of some of the surgeons she encountered, and about her own passion for seeing the war first hand. Her main character, Tribulation Periwinkle, shows a passage from innocence to maturity and is a "serious and eloquent witness". Her novel ''Moods'' (1864), based on her own experience, was also promising. After her service as a nurse, Alcott's father wrote her a heartfelt poem titled "To Louisa May Alcott. From her father". The poem describes how proud her father is of her for working as a nurse and helping injured soldiers as well as bringing cheer and love into their home. He ends the poem by telling her she's in his heart for being a selfless faithful daughter. This poem was featured in the books ''Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters, and Journals'' (1889) and ''Louisa May Alcott, the Children's Friend'', which talks about her childhood and close relationship with her father. Between 1863 and 1872, Alcott anonymously wrote at least thirty-three "gothic thrillers" for popular magazines and papers such as ''The Flag of Our Union''; they began to be rediscovered only in 1975. In the mid-1860s she wrote passionate, fiery novels and sensational stories akin to those of English authors Wilkie Collins and Mary Elizabeth Braddon under the nom de plume A. M. Barnard. Among these are ''A Long Fatal Love Chase'' and ''Pauline's Passion and Punishment''. Her protagonists for these books, like those of Collins and Braddon (who also included feminist characters in their writings), are strong, smart, and determined. She also produced stories for children, and after they became popular, she did not go back to writing for adults. Other books she wrote are the anonymously published Novella, novelette ''A Modern Mephistopheles'' (1877), which attracted suspicion that it was authored by Julian Hawthorne, and the semi-autobiographical novel ''Work'' (1873). Catherine Ross Nickerson credits Alcott with creating one of the earliest works of detective fiction in American literature, second only to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and his other Auguste Dupin stories, with the 1865 thriller "V.V., or Plots and Counterplots." A short story published anonymously by Alcott, it concerns a Scottish aristocrat who tries to prove that a mysterious woman has killed his fiancée and cousin. The detective on the case, Antoine Dupres, is a parody of Poe's Dupin who is less concerned with solving the crime than in setting up a way to reveal the solution with a dramatic flourish. Alcott became even more successful with the first part of ''

: or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy'' (1868), a semi-autobiographical account of her childhood with her sisters in Concord, Massachusetts, published by the Roberts Brothers (publishers), Roberts Brothers. When Alcott returned to Boston following her travels in Europe, she became an editor at a magazine, ''Merry's Museum''. It was here where she met Thomas Niles, who encouraged the writing of Part I of the novel, asking her to create a book especially for girls. Part II, or ''Part Second'', also known as ''Good Wives'' (1869), followed the March sisters into adulthood and marriage. ''

'' (1871) detailed Jo's life at the Plumfield School that she founded with her husband Professor Bhaer at the conclusion of Part Two of ''

''. Lastly, ''

'' (1886) completed the "March Family Saga". Louisa May Alcott 5c 1940 issue

In ''

'', Alcott based her heroine "Jo" on herself. But whereas Jo marries at the end of the story, Alcott remained single throughout her life. She explained her "spinsterhood" in an interview with Louise Chandler Moulton, "I am more than half-persuaded that I am a man's soul put by some freak of nature into a woman's body.... because I have fallen in love with so many pretty girls and never once the least bit with any man.” However, Alcott's romance while in Europe with the young Polish man Ladislas "Laddie" Wisniewski was detailed in her journals but then deleted by Alcott herself before her death. Alcott identified Laddie as the model for Laurie in ''Little Women''. Likewise, every character seems to be paralleled to some extent with people from Alcott's lifefrom Beth's death mirroring Lizzie's to Jo's rivalry with the youngest, Amy, as Alcott felt a rivalry for (Abigail) May, at times. Though Alcott never married, she did take in May's daughter, Louisa, after May's untimely death in 1879, caring for little "Lulu" for the next eight years. In addition to drawing on her own life during the development of ''Little Women,'' Alcott also took influence from several of her earlier works including "The Sisters' Trial," "A Modern Cinderella," and "In the Garret." The characters within these short stories and poems, in addition to Alcott's own family and personal relationships, inspired the general concepts and bases for many of the characters within ''Little Women'' as well as the author's subsequent novels. ''

'' was well-received, with critics and audiences finding it suitable for many age groupsa fresh, natural representation of daily life. An ''Eclectic Magazine'' reviewer called it "the very best of books to reach the hearts of the young of any age from six to sixty". With the success of ''Little Women'', Alcott shied away from the attention and would sometimes act as a servant when fans would come to her house. Grave of Louisa May Alcott

Along with Elizabeth Drew Stoddard, Elizabeth Stoddard, Rebecca Harding Davis, Anne Moncure Crane, and others, Alcott was part of a group of female authors during the Gilded Age, who addressed women's issues in a modern and candid manner. Their works were, as one newspaper columnist of the period commented, "among the decided 'signs of the times'".

Later years

In 1877, Alcott was one of the founders of the Women's Educational and Industrial Union in Boston. After her youngest sister May died in 1879, Louisa took over the care of her niece, Lulu, who was named after Louisa. Alcott suffered chronic health problems in her later years, including vertigo. She and her earliest biographers attributed her illness and death to mercury poisoning. During her American Civil War service, Alcott contracted typhoid fever and was treated with a Compounding, compound containing mercury. Recent analysis of Alcott's illness suggests that her Chronic (medicine), chronic health problems may have been associated with an autoimmune disease, not mercury exposure. However, mercury is a known trigger for autoimmune diseases as well. An 1870 portrait of Alcott does show her cheeks to be quite flushed, perhaps with the "butterfly rash" across cheeks and nose which is often characteristic of lupus, but there is no conclusive evidence available for a firm diagnosis. Alcott died of a stroke at age 55 in Boston, on March 6, 1888, two days after her father's death. Louisa's last known words were, "Is it not meningitis?" She is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery (Concord, Massachusetts), Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, near Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau, on a hillside now known as "Authors' Ridge". Her niece Lulu was only eight years old when Louisa died. She was cared for by Anna Alcott Pratt, then reunited with her father in Europe and lived abroad until her death in 1976. Louisa frequently wrote in her journals about going on long walks and runs. She challenged prevailing social norms regarding gender by encouraging her young female readers to run as well. In an interview in the early 1880s, Alcott declared, "I am more than half-persuaded that I am a man’s soul, put by some freak of nature into a woman’s body." The Alcotts' Concord, Massachusetts home, Orchard House (c. 1650), where the family lived for 25 years and where ''Little Women'' was written and set in 1868, has been a historic house museum since 1912, and pays homage to the Alcotts by focusing on public education and historic preservation. Her Boston home is featured on the Boston Women's Heritage Trail. Harriet Reisen wrote ''Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind "Little Women,"'' which later became a PBS documentary directed by Nancy Porter. In 2008, John Matteson wrote ''Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father'', which won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography. Louisa May Alcott was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1996.

Selected works

The ''Little Women'' series

* ''

'', or ''Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy'' (1868) * Part Second of ''Little Women'', or "Good Wives", published in 1869; and afterward published together with ''Little Women''. * ''

: Life at Plumfield with Jo's Boys'' (1871) * ''

and How They Turned Out: A Sequel to "Little Men"'' (1886)

Novels

* ''The Inheritance'' (1849, unpublished until 1997) * ''Moods'' (1865, revised 1882) * ''The Mysterious Key and What It Opened'' (1867) * ''An Old Fashioned Girl'' (1870) * ''Will's Wonder Book'' (1870) * ''Work: A Story of Experience'' (1873) * ''Beginning Again, Being a Continuation of Work'' (1875) * ''Eight Cousins'' or ''The Aunt-Hill'' (1875) * ''Rose in Bloom'': A Sequel to Eight Cousins (1876) * ''Under the Lilacs'' (1878) * ''Jack and Jill: A Village Story'' (1880) * ''Proverb Stories'' (1882)

As A. M. Barnard

* ''Behind a Mask, or a Woman's Power'' (1866) * ''The Abbot's Ghost, or Maurice Treherne's Temptation'' (1867) * ''A Long Fatal Love Chase'' (1866; first published 1995)

Published anonymously

* ''A Modern Mephistopheles'' (1877)

Short story collections for children

* ''Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag'' (1872–1882). (66 short stories in six volumes) ** 1. "Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag" ** 2. "Shawl-Straps" ** 3. "Cupid and Chow-Chow" ** 4. "My Girls, Etc." ** 5. "Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc." ** 6. "An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc." * ''Lulu's Library'' (1886–1889) A collection of 32 short stories in three volumes. * ''Flower Fables'' (1849) * ''On Picket Duty, and other tales'' (1864) * ''Morning-Glories and Other Stories'' (1867) Eight fantasy stories and four poems for children, including: *"A Strange Island", (1868); * "The Rose Family: A Fairy Tale" (1864), "A Christmas Song", "Morning Glories", "Shadow-Children", "Poppy's Pranks", "What the Swallows did", "Little Gulliver", "The Whale's story", "Goldfin and Silvertail". * ''Kitty's Class Day and Other Stories (Three Proverb Stories)'', 1868, (includes "Kitty's Class Day", "Aunt Kipp" and "Psyche's Art") * ''Spinning-Wheel Stories* '' (1884). A collection of 12 short stories. * ''The Candy Country'' (1885) (One short story) * ''May Flowers'' (1887) (One short story) * ''Mountain-Laurel and Maidenhair'' (1887) (One short story) * ''A Garland for Girls'' (1888). A collection of eight short stories. * ''The Brownie and the Princess'' (2004). A collection of ten short stories.

In popular culture

''Little Women'' inspired film versions in Little Women (1933 film), 1933, Little Women (1949 film), 1949, Little Women (1994 film), 1994, Little Women (2018 film), 2018, and Little Women (2019 film), 2019. The novel also inspired television series in Little Women (1958 TV series), 1958, Little Women (1970 TV series), 1970, Little Women (1978 film), 1978, and Little Women (2017 TV series), 2017, and anime versions in Little Women (1981 TV series), 1981 and Little Women (1987 TV series), 1987. ''Little Women'' also inspired a BBC Radio 4 version in 2017. ''Little Men'' inspired film versions in Little Men (1934 film), 1934, Little Men (1940 film), 1940, and Little Men (1998 film), 1998. This novel also was the basis for Little Men (TV series), a 1998 television series. Other films based on Alcott novels and stories are ''An Old-Fashioned Girl'' (1949), ''The Inheritance'' (1997), and ''An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving'' (2008). In 2009 PBS produced an ''American Masters'' episode titled "Louisa May Alcott – The Woman Behind 'Little Women' ". In 2016 a Google Doodle of the author was created by Google artist Sophie Diao. A dramatized version of Alcott appeared as a character in the television series ''Dickinson (TV series), Dickinson'', in the episode "There's a Certain Slant of Light," which premiered on November 1, 2019. Alcott was portrayed by Zosia Mamet.

References

Bibliography

External links

Sources * *

at Project Gutenberg Australia * *
Works by Louisa May Alcott
at Online Books Page
Index entry for Louisa May Alcott
at Poets' Corner
Bibliography
(including primary works and information on secondary literature – critical essays, theses and dissertations) Archival materials
Guide to Louisa May Alcott papers, MS Am 800.23
a
Houghton Library
Harvard University
Guide to Louisa May Alcott additional papers, 1839–1888, MS Am 2114
a
Houghton Library
Harvard University
Guide to Louisa May Alcott additional papers, 1845–1945, MS Am 1817
a
Houghton Library
Harvard University
Guide to Louisa May Alcott additional papers, 1849–1887, MS Am 1130.13
a
Houghton Library
Harvard University
Guide to Louisa May Alcott papers, MSS 503
a
L. Tom Perry Special Collections
Brigham Young University
Madeline B. Stern Papers on Louisa May Alcott, MSS 3953
a
L. Tom Perry Special Collections
Brigham Young University
Carolyn Davis collection of Louisa May Alcott
at the University of Maryland Libraries Other
Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind ‘Little Women’
– American Masters documentary (PBS)
The Louisa May Alcott Society
A scholarly organization devoted to her life and works.
Louisa May Alcott, the real woman who wrote Little Women
Documentary materials.

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20080407143910/http://ww3.startribune.com/blogs/oldnews/archives/175 ''Minneapolis Tribune'', March 7, 1888, ''Obituary: Miss Louisa M. Alcott'']
''Encyclopædia Britannica'', Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House
Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House historic site in Concord, MA. * Norwood, Arlisha
"Louisa Alcott"
National Women's History Museum. 2017. * Matteson, J. (November 2009)
Little Woman; The devilish, dutiful daughter Louisa May Alcott
''Humanities'', ''30''(6), 1–6.
Louisa May Alcott
s Orchard House. (n.d.). Retrieved March 20, 2018 * Hooper, E. (September 23, 2017). Louisa May Alcott
A Difficult Woman Who Got Things Done
Retrieved March 20, 2018, * Powell, K. (n.d.)
Louisa May Alcott Family Tree and Genealogy – ThoughtCo.Retrieved March 20, 2018

– archive.nytimes.com. (March 7, 1888). Retrieved March 20, 2018 * Alcott
'Not The Little Woman You Thought She Was'
(December 28, 2009). Retrieved March 20, 2018 * Raga, S. (November 29, 2017)
10 Little Facts About Louisa May Alcott
Retrieved March 20, 2018, National Women's Hall of Fame {{DEFAULTSORT:Alcott, Louisa May 1832 births 1888 deaths 19th-century American novelists 19th-century American poets 19th-century American women writers Alcott family American children's writers American Civil War nurses American women nurses American feminist writers American suffragists American temperance activists American women novelists American women poets American women's rights activists Female wartime nurses Members of the Transcendental Club People from Concord, Massachusetts Writers from Dedham, Massachusetts People from South End, Boston Pseudonymous women writers Underground Railroad people American women children's writers Women in the American Civil War Writers from Boston Novelists from Pennsylvania Writers from Philadelphia Writers of Gothic fiction Sewall family Quincy family Novelists from Massachusetts 19th-century pseudonymous writers