American author, known for her children' books, especially LITTLE WOMEN (1868). Unknown to her family and the public, Alcott begun writing 'rubbish novels', sometimes anonymously, sometimes as 'A.N. Barnard', to contribute to the family income.

Above man's aims his nature rose.
The wisdom of a just content
Made one small spot a continent,
And tuned to poetry Life's prose.
(from Louisa May Alcott, Her Life Letters, and Journals, 1889)

Alcott was born in Germantown (now part of Philadelphia). During her childhood her family moved to Boston. She spent most of her life in the Boston-Concord area, and received almost all her early education from her father Bronson Alcott (1799-1888), who was a member of the New England Transcendentalists. He was an idealistic, if impractical person, who believed in the spiritual life, as contrasted with the material life. When a visiting English author criticized her father's teaching methods, the schoolmaster Alcott moved with his family to Concord. Among the family friends were Theodore Parker, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Alcott began to keep diary at the age of seven. Her first book, FLOWER FABLES (1854), a collection of tales, was originally written for Emerson's daughter Ellen. After the failure of her father's utopian community Fruitlands, she took care, with her mother, of the welfare of the family. Her mother, who had not been so enthusiastic about the New Eden plan of her husbands, took in a boarder, when the family moved into Boston again.

By 1860 both her short stories and poems began to appear in the Atlantic Monthly (now The Atlantic). As an ardent abolitionist she volunteered in the American Civil War as a nurse and served in 1862-1863 at the Union Hospital in Georgetown, D.C.. During this time Alcott contracted typhoid from which she never completely recovered. In 1863 Alcott published her letters in book form under the title HOSPITAL SKETCHES. The work was well received and encouraged her to continue with her writing aspirations.

"No, dear; the dress is proper and becoming as it is, and the old fashion of simplicity the best for all of us. I don't want my Polly to be loved for her clothes, but for herself; so wear the plain frocks mother took such pleasure in making for you, and let the panniers go. The least of us have some influence in this big world; and perhaps my little girl can do some good by showing others that a contended heart and a happy face are better ornaments than any Paris can give her."
(from An Old-fashioned Girl)

Alcott's first novel, MOODS, was published in 1867. In the same year she became editor of a children's magazine, Merry Museum. With the publication of Little Women, which started under the pressure of financial need, Alcott gained enormous fame as a writer. Responding to her publisher's request, she drew her material from her own family and from the New England milieu where she had grown up. The novel was followed by several other popular works, among them GOOD WIVES (1869), OLD-FASHIONED GIRL (1870), and LITTLE MEN (1871). Alcott's last years were shadowed by the deaths of her mother and her sister May, who left behind a little daughter. Alcott died in Boston on March 6, 1888.

Although Alcott is labelled nowadays as a juvenile writer, she also published thriller's under a pseudonym. Their revengeful heroines and themes from mind control and madness, hashish experimentation and opium addiction, differ radically from the domestic values of her best-known works.

Little Women - published in two parts, in 1868 and 1869. The story starts from the years of the American Civil War and is set in a quiet Massachusetts town. Meg, Jo, Bert, and Amy March are raised in genteel poverty by their loving mother Marmee. Their father serves in the army. The girls befriend Theodore Lawrence, who is the grandson of a rich old man. Meg marries Laurie's tutor John Brooke, Beth dies from scarlet fever, and Amy marries Laurie after he is turned down by Jo, whose choices are crucial for the development of the events. Jo wants to be a journalist, but she is frustrated with his role and tight Christian values. Finally Jo marries Professor Bhaer and together they set up a school for boys. - Clive Bloom sees Little Women as a perfect example of the evolution of the novel from its early days in Walter Scott. The writing is self-conscious and aware of the importance of the novel both as entertainment, art and moral instrument. It was also produced for the new audience - young people. (See: Cult Fiction by Clive Bloom, 1996).

May Alcott (1840-1879) gained fame as an artists. She lived in Boston, London and Paris, where she died in 1879. Among her literary works were Concord Sketches (1869) and Art Studying Abroad (1879). - Amos Alcott (1799-1888), publications: Observations on the Principles and Methods of Infant Instruction (1830), The Doctrine and Discipline of Human Culture (1836), Conversations with Children on the Gospels (1836/37), Tablets (1868), Table-Talk (1877), Sonnets and Canzonets (1882), Journals (1938), Orphic Sayings (1939), Letters (1969)

For further reading: Little Women & the Feminist Imagination, ed. by Jack David Zipes, Beverly L. Clark, Janice M. Alberghene (1998); Louisa May Alcott by Amy Katheran Ruth (1998); Louisa May Alcott by Kathleen Burke, Matina S. Horner (1998); Invincible Louisa by Cornelia Meigs (1933, reissued in 1991); Louisa May by Norma Johnston (1991); Louisa May Alcott and 'Little Women' by Gloria T. Delamar (1991): Louisa May Alcott: A Modern Biography by Martha Saxton (1977); Louisa May Alcott, ed. by Madeleine B. Stern (1950); Louisa May Alcott by Katharine SD. Anthony (1938); Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters and Journals, ed. by Ednah D. Cheney (1889) - See other classic writers of children's literature: L. M. Montgomery, Astrid Lindgren.

• THE ROSE FAMILY, 1864
• ON PICKET DUTY, AND OTHER TALES, 1864
• FLOWER FABLES, 1855
• HOSPITAL SCETCHES, 1863
• MOODS, 1865
• NELLY'S HOSPITAL, 1865
• THE MYSTERIOUS KEY, 1867
• AUNT KIPP, 1868
• LOUISA M. ALCOTT'S PROVERB STORIES, 1868
• KITTY'S CLASS DIARY, 1868
• LITTLE WOMEN; OR MEG, JO BETH, AND AMY, 1868-69 - film 1933, dir. George Cucor, starring Catherine Hepburn; film 1949, dir. Mervyn Le Roy, starring June Allyson, Elisabeth Taylor; film 1994, dir. Gillian Armstrong, starring Winona Ryder, Gabriel Byrne
• PSYCHE'S ART, 1868
• OLD-FASHIONED GIRL, 1870 - film 1949
• WILL'S WONDER BOOK / LOUISA'S WONDER BOOK, 1870
• LITTLE MEN, 1871 - film 1934, 1940
• AUNT JO'S SCRAP BAG (6 vols.), 1872-82
• WORK, 1873
• SOMETHING TO DO, 1873
• EIGHT COUSINS, 1875
• ROSE IN BLOOM, 1876
• SILVER PITCHERS, 1876
• A MODERN MEPHISTOTELES, 1877
• UNDER THE LILACS, 1879
• MEADOW BLOSSOMS, 1879
• SPARKLES FOR BRIGHT EYES, 1879
• WATER CRESSES, 1879
• JACK, AND JILL, 1880
• PROVERB STORIES, 1882
• SPINNING-WHEEL STORIES, 1884
• JO'S BOYS AND HOW THEY TURNED OUT, 1886
• LULU'S LIBRARY, 1886-89
• A GARLAND FOR GIRLS, 1888
• LOUISA MAY ALCOTT: HER LIFE, LETTERS AND JOURNALS, 1889 (ed. by Edhan D. Cheney)
• COMIC TRAGEDIES WRITTEN BY "JO" AND "MEG" AND ACTED BY THE LITTLE WOMEN, 1893
• A ROUND DOZEN, 1963
• GLIMPSES OF LOUISA, 1968
• AN OLD-FASHIONED THANKSGIVING, 1974
• TRANSCENDENTAL WILD OATS AND EXCERPTS FROM THE FRUITLANDS DIARY, 1975
• BEHIND A MASK: THE UNKNOWN THRILLERS OF LOUISA MAY ALCOTT, 1975
• PLOTS AND COUNTERPLOTS: MORE UNKNOWN THRILLERS OF LOUISA MAY ALCOTT, 1976 (as A.M. Barnard)
• TRUDEL'S SIEGE, 1976
• DIANA AND PERSIS, 1978
• THE HIDDEN LOUISA MAY ALCOTT, 1984
• THE FADED BANNERS, 1986
• THE SELECTED LETTERS OF LOUISA MAY ALCOTT, 1987
• THE WORKS OF LOUISA MAY ALCOTT, 1832-1888, 1987
• ALTERNATIVE ALCOTT, 1988
• A DOUBLE LIFE, 1988
• FREAKS OF GENIUS, 1991
• LOUISA MAY ALCOTT'S FAIRY TALES AND FANTASY STORIES, 1992
• LOUISA MAY ALCOTT: HER GIRLHOOD DIARY, 1993
• THE FEMINIST ALCOTT, 1996

  The film The Inheritance (1997), dir. by Bobby Roth, starring Meredith Baxter and Tom Conti, is based on Alcott's story.