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Louisa May Alcott ( / ˈɔːlkət, - kɒt /; November 29, 1832 – March 6, 1888) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet best known for writing the novel Little Women (1868) and its sequels Good Wives (1869), Little Men (1871) and Jo's Boys (1886). Raised in New England by her transcendentalist parents, Abigail May and Amos ...
May 19, 2024 · Louisa May Alcott died of a stroke in 1888. Her health had been flagging for decades prior, however, and she wrote in her journal that she frequently suffered from exhaustion, headaches, nerve issues, and digestive pain.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Louisa May Alcott is most famous for her novel Little Women (1868–69), an autobiographical text about a cheery family of modest means. She also sub...
- Louisa May Alcott’s father, Bronson Alcott, was a Transcendentalist educator who frequently entertained friends such as Henry David Thoreau and Ral...
- Jo. The second-oldest March sister Alcott based on herself. She was an avid runner and tree-climber until the Civil War, when she served as a nurse and contracted typhoid pneumonia.
- Meg. The oldest March sister is based on Alcott’s real-life oldest sister Anna Bronson Alcott. She, too, was a rule-follower who accepted the ideals of Victorian womanhood.
- Amy. The youngest March sister is based on the youngest Alcott sister Abigail May, who went by her middle name (Amy spelled backwards). She had a passion for fine arts and fine clothes, but longed for the opportunity to learn more.
- Beth. The second-youngest March sister is based on Alcott’s sister by the same name, Elizabeth. She was shy in real life, and Alcott apparently talked about her the least in her diaries.
Alcott suffered from bouts of illness throughout her life. She attributed her poor health to mercury poisoning which she believed she contracted while she worked as a nurse during the Civil War. In 1888, she died at the age of 56 in Boston, Massachusetts.
- She wrote lurid, sensational stories before Little Women. Like her heroine Jo March, Louisa May Alcott wrote, published, and supported her family with what she called “blood and thunder tales”—gothic thrillers with names like “Pauline’s Passion and Punishment” and A Long Fatal Love Chase—before turning to her autobiographical and family-savory subject material.
- Little Women draws heavily from Alcott's own life. Louisa May Alcott took inspiration from her childhood memories and family members, basing Little Women‘s Meg on her oldest sister, Anna (an actress, who met her own “John Brooke”, John Bridge Pratt, playing opposite him in local theatre production).
- Louisa May Alcott didn't initially want to write Little Women! When asked by the publisher Thomas Niles to write a book for girls, she acquiesced, writing in her journal: “Marmee, Anna, and May all approve my plan.
- She wrote Little Women in under three months. In fact, Louisa May Alcott wrote the first half—402 pages—in less than six weeks!
Little Women is a coming-of-age novel written by American novelist Louisa May Alcott, originally published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869. The story follows the lives of the four March sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy—and details their passage from childhood to womanhood.
Jun 18, 2024 · Louisa May Alcott. Louisa May Alcott, engraving from Harper's Weekly. Alcott’s stories began to appear in The Atlantic Monthly (later The Atlantic ), and, because family needs were pressing, she wrote the autobiographical Little Women (1868–69), which was an immediate success.
