Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott was one of the most amazing writers of all-time. She made a huge impace on the world through her contributions to the world of literature.

Alcott was born on November 29, 1832, in Germantown, Pennsylvania. She was the second of four daughters born to Amos (Bronson) and Abigail May Alcott. Because of her father's involvement in a number of financially disastrous projects, the family was often in deperate need of money. At an early age, Alcott and her family moved to Concord, Massachusetts. Alcott received most of her early education from her father. Later, she studied under Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Theodore Park. Alcott felt the need to help her family with their financial problems. She took various jobs as a seamstress, sevant, and teacher, later turning to writing. She sold her first story in 1852. By 1860, she had published a book of fairy tales, Flower Fables, and was a regular contributor to Atlantic Monthly. The letters she wrote while working as a nurse during the Civil War were published in Hospital Sketches (1863) and won her fame. Moods, her first serious novel, appeared the next year. Alcott became a respected and financially successful novelist with her largely autobiographical Little Women. Her work was now in demand and sequels soon followed including Little Men (1871) and Jo's Boys (1886). Alcott wrote approximately 270 other works including adult novels like A Modern Mephistopheles (1877). These novels did not do as well as the novels she wrote for children. She never married and many of her essays explored the possibilities of the single life for women. Her last days were spent in sickness, but she continued to write until the day of her death, March 6, 1888.

(1975). Alcott, Louisa May. In Encyclopedia Americana (Vol 1, p. 519). New York: Americana Corporation.

Goodwin, Joan. Louisa May Alcott. Retrieved March 20, 2006, from http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/louisamayalcott.html.

Louisa May Alcott Biography. Retrieved March 20, 2006, from http://www.applebookshop.co.uk/author/alcott.htm.

Wells, Kim. (1998). More Louisa May Alcott Biography. Retrieved March 20, 2006, from http://www.womenwriters.net/domesticgoddess/lmabio.htm.