Louisa May Alcott

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. 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’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. 

When Louisa was 35 years old, her publisher in Boston, Thomas Niles, 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.