Louisa May Alcott

Author profile

born

November 29, 1832 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, The United States

died

March 06, 1888

gender

female

genre

Literature & Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mystery & Thrillers

influences

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Charles Dickens

About this author

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Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania on November 29, 1832. She and her three sisters, Anna, Elizabeth and May were educated by their father, philosopher/ teacher, Bronson Alcott and raised on the practical Christianity of their mother, Abigail May.

Louisa spent her childhood in Boston and in Concord, Massachusetts, where her days were enlightened by visits to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s library, excursions into nature with Henry David Thoreau and theatricals in the barn at Hillside (now Hawthorne’s "Wayside").

Like her character, Jo March in Little Women, young Louisa was a tomboy: "No boy could be my friend till I had beaten him in a race," she claimed, " and no girl if she refused to climb trees, leap fences...."

For Louisa, writ...more Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania on November 29, 1832. She and her three sisters, Anna, Elizabeth and May were educated by their father, philosopher/ teacher, Bronson Alcott and raised on the practical Christianity of their mother, Abigail May.

Louisa spent her childhood in Boston and in Concord, Massachusetts, where her days were enlightened by visits to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s library, excursions into nature with Henry David Thoreau and theatricals in the barn at Hillside (now Hawthorne’s "Wayside").

Like her character, Jo March in Little Women, young Louisa was a tomboy: "No boy could be my friend till I had beaten him in a race," she claimed, " and no girl if she refused to climb trees, leap fences...."

For Louisa, writing was an early passion. She had a rich imagination and often her stories became melodramas that she and her sisters would act out for friends. Louisa preferred to play the "lurid" parts in these plays, "the villains, ghosts, bandits, and disdainful queens."

At age 15, troubled by the poverty that plagued her family, she vowed: "I will do something by and by. Don’t care what, teach, sew, act, write, anything to help the family; and I’ll be rich and famous and happy before I die, see if I won’t!"

Confronting a society that offered little opportunity to women seeking employment, Louisa determined "...I will make a battering-ram of my head and make my way through this rough and tumble world." Whether as a teacher, seamstress, governess, or household servant, for many years Louisa did any work she could find.

Louisa’s career as an author began with poetry and short stories that appeared in popular magazines. In 1854, when she was 22, her first book Flower Fables was published. A milestone along her literary path was Hospital Sketches (1863) based on the letters she had written home from her post as a nurse in Washington, DC as a nurse during the Civil War.

When Louisa was 35 years old, her publisher Thomas Niles in Boston asked her to write "a book for girls." Little Women was written at Orchard House from May to July 1868. The novel is based on Louisa and her sisters’ coming of age and is set in Civil War New England. Jo March was the first American juvenile heroine to act from her own individuality; a living, breathing person rather than the idealized stereotype then prevalent in children’s fiction.

In all, Louisa published over 30 books and collections of stories. She died on March 6, 1888, only two days after her father, and is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord.(less)

combine editions
Books by Louisa May Alcott

Average rating: 3.92 · 588,595 ratings · 11,753 reviews · 320 distinct works

	Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, Susan Straight (Goodreads Author) (Afterword) 3.94 avg rating — 527,929 ratings — published 1867 — 676 editions	My rating:
	Little Men (Little Women #2) 3.72 avg rating — 14,129 ratings — published 1871 — 191 editions	My rating:
	Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott, Children's Classics 3.99 avg rating — 9,325 ratings — published 1874 — 119 editions	My rating:
	Jo's Boys (Little Women, #3) 3.67 avg rating — 10,081 ratings — published 1886 — 131 editions	My rating:
	Rose in Bloom (Eight Cousins, #2) 3.95 avg rating — 5,205 ratings — published 1876 — 99 editions	My rating:
	An Old-Fashioned Girl 4.04 avg rating — 4,458 ratings — published 1869 — 139 editions	My rating:
	Good Wives (Little Women, #1/2) 3.85 avg rating — 3,399 ratings — published 1869 — 89 editions	My rating:
	A Long Fatal Love Chase 3.57 avg rating — 2,255 ratings — published 1995 — 20 editions	My rating:
	The Inheritance 3.56 avg rating — 1,990 ratings — 12 editions	My rating:
	Under the Lilacs 3.59 avg rating — 1,453 ratings — published 1878 — 67 editions	My rating:

More books by Louisa May Alcott…

Series by Louisa May Alcott

Eight Cousins (2 books)
by Louisa May Alcott

3.97 avg rating — 14,502 ratings

Bedford Series in History & Culture (2 books)
by Louisa May Alcott

3.70 avg rating — 301 ratings

Quotes by Louisa May Alcott

“She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Work: A Story of Experience

tags: books

3,162 people liked it

“Stay is a charming word in a friend's vocabulary.”
― Louisa May Alcott

tags: friendship

1,363 people liked it

“I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

tags: inspirational-ship-storms

789 people liked it

See all Louisa May Alcott's quotes »

Polls

Which 'kids as the main characters' book do you want to read in August?

The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories, by Tim Burton

9 votes, 45.0%

Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott

9 votes, 45.0%

The Member of the Wedding, by Carson McCullers

2 votes, 10.0%

20 total votes

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