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Louisa May Alcott
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Louisa
Alcott was born on 29 November, 1832, in Germantown, Pennsylvania, United
States to Amos Bronson Alcott and Abigail May Alcott. She was one of their
four daughters. Her father was a New England Transcendentalist philosopher
and educator, who only worked for short periods throughout his life.
Louisa grew up in Boston and later lived in Concord where she associated
with other famous writers like the Emersons, Thoreaus, Hawthornes and the
Ripleys. Although her family was poor, Louisa had a happy childhood. She
was taught by her father till the age of sixteen and later studied under
Henry Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and George Briggs.
Bronson Alcott founded a number of schools but all of them failed, forcing
his wife and daughters to work and support the family. Louisa taught in a
number of schools, did sewing and even worked as a domestic servant in
order to earn some money. |
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At the age of sixteen, Louisa began to write because she was convinced
that she could earn some money and alleviate her family's poverty. Her
first poem was published in 1851 under the name of Flora Fairchild. Though
she didn't earn much money, she developed a great deal of confidence in
herself and the following year she wrote a number of very interesting and
popular stories under the pseudonym of A. M. Bernard.
In 1862 she went to serve as a nurse in Washington DC and served wounded
soldiers during the civil war. But she contracted typhoid and had to
return home. She narrowly escaped death and never quite recovered her good
health. She recounted her experiences as a nurse in Hospital
Sketches in the year 1862 and these became quite popular. Her first
novel called Moods was published
in 1864 and did well, despite being labeled immoral by some critics.
In 1865, she traveled throughout Europe with a rich invalid as her
companion. She continued to write periodicals and was offered the
editorship of an American journal known as Merry's
Museum, which she accepted.
With the publishing of her novel Little
Women in 1869 she became very famous. It was an autobiographical
account of Louisa's life and family. So successful was her novel that she
wrote four sequels to it named Little
Men, Good Wives, Aunt Joe's scrapbag and Jo's
boys. By this time she was a celebrity and had earned enough money to
easily support her family.
From 1875 onward, her health began to deteriorate and she began to write
more of juvenile literature like Rose
in Bloom which earned mixed reviews. She survived both her siblings,
Elizabeth and May. She began to divide her years between Concord and
Boston and devoted her life to literature. Her father Bronson died on
March 4, 1888 and two days later Louisa also followed suit. She was buried
in a little poet's colony in Sleepy Hollow cemetery next to her friends
and tutors, the Hawthornes, Emersons and Thoreaus. |
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