Louisa May Alcott

(1832 – 1888)

Biographical Sketch

Louisa May Alcott (Germantown, PA, USA, November 29, 1832 – Boston, MA, USA, March 6, 1888) was an American novelist best known as author of the novel Little Women and its sequels Little Men and Jo’s Boys. Raised by her transcendentalist parents, Abigail May and Amos Bronson Alcott in New England, she grew up among many of the well-known intellectuals of the day such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau. Nevertheless, her family suffered severe financial difficulties and Alcott worked to help support the family from an early age. She began to receive critical success for her writing in the 1860s. Early in her career, she sometimes used the pen name A. M. Barnard.

Published in 1868, Little Women is set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts and is loosely based on Alcott’s childhood experiences with her three sisters. The novel was very well received and is still a popular children’s novel today. Alcott was an abolitionist and a feminist. Never married, she died in Boston.

Bibliography

Little Women

Little Women or, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy
(2 volumes: 1868-1969)
- Volume 2 republished as:
  Little Women Wedded (1872)
  Little Women Married (1873)
  Nice Wives (1875)
  Good Wives (1895)
- Both volumes republished as:
  Little Women and Good Wives (1895)
Little Men: Life at Plumfield with Jo’s Boys (1871)
Jo’s Boys, and How They Turned Out (1886)

Other Novels

The Inheritance (1849)
– Discovered in 1988.
Moods (1864)
A Long Fatal Love Chase (1866)
An Old-Fashioned Girl (1870)
Work: A Story of Experience (1873)
Eight Cousins; or, The Aunt-Hill (1875)
Rose in Bloom (1876)
A Modern Mephistopheles (1877)
– First published anonymously.
Under the Lilacs (1878)
Jack and Jill: A Village Story (1880)

Short Fiction

Flower Fables (1855)
Hospital Sketches (1863)
The Rose Family: A Fairy Tale (1864)
On Picket Duty, and Other Tales (1864)
Nelly’s Hospital (1865)
The Mysterious Key, and What It Opened (1867)
Morning-Glories, and Other Stories (1868)
Proverb Stories (1868)
- Kitty’s Class Day
- Aunt Kipp
- Psyche’s Art
Hospital Sketches; Camp and Fireside Stories (1869)
Will’s Wonder Book (1870)
V.V; or, Plots and Counterplots (c. 1870)
– Published under the pseudonym A. M. Barnard.
Aunt Jo’s Scrap-Bag (6 volumes, 1872 – 1882)
Something to Do (1873)
– Contains Proverb Stories.
Silver Pitchers; Independence, a Centennial Love Story (1876)
Meadow Blossoms (1879)
Water Cresses (1879)
Sparkles for Bright Eyes (1879)
Spinning-Wheel Stories (1884)
Lulu’s Library:
- A Christmas Dream (1886)
- The Frost King (1887)
- Recollections (1889)
A Garland for Girls (1887)
A Modern Mephistopheles; A Whisper in the Dark (1889)

Posthumous Publications

Comic Tragedies Written by “Jo” and “Meg” and Acted by the Little Women (1893)
A Round Dozen: Stories (1963)
Glimpses of Louisa: A Centennial Sampling of the Best Short Stories by Louisa May Alcott (1968)
Behind a Mask: The Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott (1975)
Louisa’s Wonder Book: An Unknown Alcott Juvenile (1975)
Plots and Counterplots: More Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott (1976)
Trundel’s Siege (1976)
Diana and Persis (1978)
Napoleon Bonaparte (1984)
The Hidden Louisa May Alcott: A Collection of Her Unknown Thrillers (1986)
A Modern Mephistopheles; Taming a Tartar (1987)
The Works of Louisa May Alcott, 1832-1888 (1987)
A Double Life: Newly Discovered Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott (1988)
Alternative Alcott (1988)
An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving (1989, 1991)
Shawl Straps (1989)
Silver Pitchers and Other Stories (1989)
Louisa May Alcott’s Fairy Tales and Fantasy Stories (1992)
From Jo March’s Attic: Stories of Intrigue and Suspense (1993)
The Lost Stories of Louisa May Alcott (1995)
A Marble Woman: Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott (1995)
Louisa May Alcott Unmasked: Collected Thrillers (1995)
Modern Magic: Five Stories (1995)
Short Stories (1996)
The Quiet Little Woman; Tilly’s Christmas; Rosa’s Tale: Three Enchanting Christmas Stories (1999)
The Portable Louisa May Alcott (2000)
The Poems of Louisa May Alcott (2000)
The Early Stories of Louisa May Alcott, 1852-1860 (2000)
The Sketches of Louisa May Alcott (2001)
The Uncollected Works of Louisa May Alcott – Volume One: Short Stories (2001)
Louisa May Alcott: Selected Fiction (2001)
Kate’s Choice; What Love Can Do; Gwen’s Adventure in the Snow: Three Fire-Side Stories to Warm the Heart (2001)
Louisa May Alcott’s Christmas Treasury (2002)
A Modern Cinderella or the Little Old Shoe (2002)

Correspondence, Memoirs, Journals

Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters and Journals (1889)
Transcendental Wild Oats (1981)
Transcendental Wild Oats and Excerpts from the Fruitlands Diary (1981)
The Selected Letters of Louisa May Alcott (1987)
The Journals of Louisa May Alcott (1992)
Louisa May Alcott: Her Girlhood Diary (1995)
The Girlhood Diary of Louisa May Alcott, 1843 – 1846 (2000)

Online editions of Louisa May Alcott’s works:

A Selection of Quotes

Work: A Story of Experience

“She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain.”

Eight Cousins

“Presently, out from the wrappings came a teapot, which caused her to clasp her hands with delight, for it was made in the likeness of a plump little Chinaman … Two pretty cups with covers, and a fine scarlet tray, completed the set, and made one long to have a “dish of tea,” even in Chinese style, without cream or sugar.”

Find more quotes by Louisa May Alcott on Wikiquote and Goodreads.