Victorian

Louisa May Alcott

1832–1888

Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888) grew up in Concord, Massachusetts, the daughter of the transcendentalist educator Bronson Alcott, with Emerson and Thoreau as family friends. She worked as a teacher, seamstress and Civil War nurse (Hospital Sketches, 1863) and wrote sensational stories under a pseudonym before Little Women (1868–69), drawn from her own family, made her famous. Little Men (1871) and Jo’s Boys (1886) followed. She was active in abolition and women’s suffrage.

Fontes: Bibliomancer editorial note, written from standard reference facts (dates, places, principal works).