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Last edited by Tom Morris
September 25, 2023 | History

Louisa May Alcott

29 November 1832 - 6 March 1888

Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania on November 29, 1832. She and her three sisters, Anna, Elizabeth, and May, were educated by their father, philosopher and teacher Bronson Alcott, and raised on the practical Christianity of their mother, Abigail May.

Louisa spent her childhood in Boston and in Concord, Massachusetts, where her days were enlightened by visits to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s library, excursions into nature with Henry David Thoreau, and theatricals in the barn at "Hillside".

Like her character, "Jo March" in Little Women, young Louisa was a tomboy. "No boy could be my friend till I had beaten him in a race," she claimed, "and no girl if she refused to climb trees, leap fences ..."

For Louisa, writing was an early passion. She had a rich imagination and often her stories became melodramas that she and her sisters would act out for friends. Louisa preferred to play the "lurid" parts in these plays --"the villains, ghosts, bandits, and disdainful queens."

At age 15, troubled by the poverty that plagued her family, she vowed: "I will do something by and by. Don’t care what, teach, sew, act, write -- anything to help the family; and I’ll be rich and famous and happy before I die, see if I won’t!"

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  • Cover of: Louisa May Alcott Hidden Gems Collection: Eight Cousins; Rose in Bloom; an Old-Fashioned Girl; under the Lilacs; Jack and Jill

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  • Cover of: Oxford Children's Classics: Little Women

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  • Cover of: Lulu's Library, Volume 2

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  • Cover of: Lulu's Library, Volume 2

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  • Cover of: Lulu's Library, Volume 3

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  • Cover of: Strange Life: Selected Essays of Louisa May Alcott

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  • Cover of: Our Little Ghost

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  • Cover of: Vintage Christmas: A Collection of Classic Stories and Poems

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  • Cover of: Lulu's Library, Volume 1

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  • Cover of: Fairies and Flowers Anthology : : Tales from Louisa May Alcott

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  • Cover of: Kleine Frauen. Band 1. (aktualisierte Übersetzung)

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  • Cover of: Pauline's Passion and Punishment: Large Print

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  • Cover of: Silver Pitchers: And Independence, a Centennial Love Story

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  • Cover of: Candle Game : from Sea to Shadowed Sea: Unearthly Horrors from Across Darkest America

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  • Cover of: Ariel Oder a Legend of the Lighthouse and Other Tales of Sea Creatures

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  • Cover of: Rose en Fleur

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September 25, 2023 Edited by Tom Morris merge authors
July 1, 2022 Edited by AgentSapphire merge authors
July 1, 2022 Edited by AgentSapphire merge authors
July 1, 2022 Edited by AgentSapphire merge authors
April 1, 2008 Created by an anonymous user initial import