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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: A Long Fatal Love Chase

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  • Cover of: A Long Fatal Love Chase

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  • Cover of: A long fatal love chase
    First published in 1995 12 editions in 2 languages — 4 previewable Cover of edition pourlemeilleuret0000alco Cover of edition chaseorlongfatal0000alco Cover of edition longfatallovecha0000alco_f1t0

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  • Cover of: Little Men / Little Women Boxed Set

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  • Cover of: Louisa May Alcott's little instruction book
    First published in 1995 1 edition in 1 language — 1 previewable

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  • Cover of: A marble woman: unknown thrillers of Louisa May Alcott

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  • Cover of: Modern magic
    First published in 1995 1 edition in 1 language — 1 previewable

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  • Cover of: Scenes from Little Women (A Little Brown Notebook)

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  • Cover of: The wisdom of Little women

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  • Cover of: The lost stories of Louisa May Alcott
    First published in 1995 3 editions in 1 language — 1 previewable

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  • Cover of: Las Mujercitas Se Casan

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  • Cover of: A whisper in the dark: twelve thrilling tales

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  • Cover of: Pour le meilleur et pour le pire ... et pour l'éternité: roman

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  • Cover of: The feminist Alcott: stories of a woman's power

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  • Cover of: Louisa May Alcott Thrillers

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  • Cover of: Mujercitas Se Casan, Las

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  • Cover of: Short stories
    First published in 1996 1 edition in 1 language — 1 previewable

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  • Cover of: The inheritance
    First published in 1997 7 editions in 2 languages — 4 previewable Cover of edition inheritance0000alco Cover of edition inheritance00alco Cover of edition inheritance00alco_0

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  • Cover of: Nashim ḳeṭanot

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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