Rose In Bloom

Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist short story writer and poet best known as the author of the novel Little Women (1868) and its sequels Little Men (1871) and Jos Boys (1886). Raised in New England by her transcendentalist parents Abigail May and Amos Bronson Alcott she grew up among many well-known intellectuals of the day such as Margaret Fuller Ralph Waldo Emerson Nathaniel Hawthorne Henry David Thoreau and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Alcotts family suffered from financial difficulties and while she worked to help support the family from an early age she also sought an outlet in writing. She began to receive critical success for her writing in the 1860s. Early in her career she sometimes used pen names such as A. M. Barnard under which she wrote lurid short stories and sensation novels for adults that focused on passion and revenge. Published in 1868 Little Women is set in the Alcott family home Orchard House in Concord Massachusetts and is loosely based on Alcotts childhood experiences with her three sisters Abigail May Alcott Nieriker Elizabeth Sewall Alcott and Anna Alcott Pratt. The novel was well-received at the time and is still popular today among both children and adults. It has been adapted many times to stage film and television. Alcott was an abolitionist and a feminist and remained unmarried throughout her life. All her life she was active in such reform movements as temperance and womens suffrage. She died from a stroke in Boston on March 6 1888 just two days after her father had died.