Alcott, Louisa May (1832-1888)

The author of Little Women and other US classics, Louisa May Alcott was over 30 years old when she took up writing, drawing on her own family experiences in the quiet town of Concord, Massachusetts. She also worked to gain votes for women, and was a member of the temperance movement.

US author. Her children's classic Little Women (1869) drew on her own home circumstances; the principal character Jo was a partial self-portrait. Sequels to Little Women were Good Wives (1869), Little Men (1871), and Jo's Boys (1886).

She was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, the daughter of transcendentalist and educator Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888), but spent most of her life in Concord, Massachusetts. She was educated at home by her father and, occasionally, by family friends Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Alcott worked as a teacher, and as an army nurse in the American Civil War. She began writing to help earn money for the family. Her first book was Flower Fables (1848); her first success was Hospital Sketches (1863). She also wrote Eight Cousins (1875), Under the Lilacs (1879), and A Garland for Girls (1888).