Louisa May Alcott

---

• Biography
• Primary Source Material
• Full text works
• Web resources

Biography

Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) is widely known as author of Little Women or Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy and until the late twentieth century her literary reputation largely rested on this work. Born in Germantown, Pennsylvania to the transcendental philosopher Amos Bronson Alcott and Abigail May, Louisa grew up in Concord, Massachusetts with her three sisters. The family often experienced severe poverty and Louisa's income became pivotal to the family survival. She worked as a nurse, seamstress and domestic servant until the publication of her first book Flower Fables in 1855 which netted the author thirty-two dollars. With the publication of Little Women in 1868 Alcott achieved critical and financial success. The characters of the novel were drawn from those of Alcott's sisters, and many of its episodes from those she and her family had experienced. Alcott's masterpiece was followed by a succession of wholesome domestic narratives, the so-called Little Women series.

Since Alcott's death her reputation has been reappraised as a result of the discovery of a large number of sensational "pot-boilers," written in secret and published anonymously or under the pseudonym A.M. Barnard. These tales, written prior to the publication of Little Women , earned her between $25 and $100 each from periodical story papers. Beginning in 1975, republication of Alcott's sensation stories spurred interest in her long out-of-print adult novels. The discovery of these stories has led to a recognition of Alcott as a far more complex and prolific writer than was originally thought. As readers become more familiar with her sensation stories, and as Little Women and its offshoots are reread, it is becoming possible to see Alcott as a complex writer deeply engaged with the issue of being a woman in nineteenth-century America. No longer merely the author of Little Women, Alcott has taken her place as one of the foremost American authors of the nineteenth century.

return to top

Primary Source Material

Louisa May Alcott materials are found in many U.S. libraries. The major collection of correspondence and material is at Harvard's Houghton Library. Finding aids for the Alcott family papers at Harvard can be found on their website. The University of Virginia's Barrett Library also has Alcott family papers and manuscripts. Although a finding aid is not available on the library website AlcottWeb has recieved permission to publish a guide to this collection on their site. Other collections of Alcott materials exist at the Brigham Young University Library, the Concord Free Library, the Orchard House in Corcord, MA, and the Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, MA.

return to top

Full text of Alcott's works

return to top

Louisa May Alcott Websites

return to top