Louisa May Alcott Biography

Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist best known for her timeless masterpiece 'Little Women.' She was a free-spirited child who aspired to be a successful actress and explore the world, but her family responsibilities kept her busy throughout her life. She promised in her early days to “be rich, famous, and happy before she dies,” and she surely accomplished all of that. Her father was an abolitionist who was unable to provide enough for the family, making poverty her greatest enemy. Before she began writing, she worked as a maid, teacher, and nurse to support her family. The publication of her novel, 'Little Women,' brought her popularity and fame to society. It was inspired by her personal experiences, her relationship with her sisters, and their shared journey from childhood to womanhood. She had previously written some short stories for young adults, but none of them gained her the riches or recognition that 'Little Women' did. Despite the fact that she became wealthy and famous as a result of it, her family's troubles never appeared to go away; her personal desires were constantly overshadowed by her family's emotional and monetary requirements. Writing had been her love since childhood, and through her works, she rose to the position of literary genius.

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Early Life and Family

Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, on November 29, 1832. Bronson Alcott, an educator and philosopher, and Abigail May Alcott, a very kind-hearted mother, raised her. Abigail May Alcott Nieriker, Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, and Anna Alcott Pratt were her three sisters. Her father was unable to support their poor family, and the girls' schooling was a failure due to the constant shifting and relocation. Louisa's father established a temple school in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1834 to continue his teaching methods. The school, however, was a failure, and the family relocated to Concord, Massachusetts in 1840. Margaret Fuller (1810–1850), Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), Theodore Parker (1810–1860), and Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) were among his circle of friends. The guests became extremely good friends with the family, and they even schooled the sisters. Louisa developed her sense of writing and great humour as a result of their intellectual wealth and poverty.

Career & Jobs

Their sister's schooling was primarily under their father's supervision, though she did attend his temple school for a time. Louisa decided to make a living after their father discovered he couldn't provide for his family's basic requirements and failed the ideal community he formed. She taught students, did housework, and sold various stories she had written in various journals. And eventually, she was able to publish many popular works as a result of her journey.

As she grew older, she cultivated feminism and abolitionism in herself, preparing herself to live in a world dominated by men. She worked as a substitute teacher, household servant, seamstress, and writer in the past. She tried everything in her resources to protect her family. Her first book, originally written for Ralph Waldo Emerson's daughter Ellen, was released in 1854. While working as a nurse at a Union hospital in Georgetown, D.C., Atlantic Monthly began publishing her work in 1860. Even her letters to her family were published in Commonwealth magazine as Moods in 1864. Under a pseudonym, she published her first poem, "sunlight," in a magazine. Her mother did not support her writing for magazines, which she did under the cover of a pseudonym, as she stated in her autobiography.

Personal Life

She didn't marry or have children. She said that she wanted freedom without restrictions by marriage. In 1887, she established the Women's Educational and Industrial Union in Boston. She founded a school to encourage women's education and published a series of novels about women's rights. She was an activist for education, but her health was not in good condition. She began to experience severe health problems that were somewhat unidentifiable.

Louisa May Alcott Books

She fought for women's rights and their own sense of self-identity for the majority of her writings. In Concord, Connecticut, she was the first woman to register to vote. Major Louisa May Alcott English books are, Moods (1865, revised 1882), The Inheritance (1849, unpublished until 1997), The Mysterious Key and What It Opened (1867), Will’s Wonder Book (1870),  An Old Fashioned Girl (1870), Beginning Again, Work: A Story of Experience (1873), Eight Cousins or The Aunt-Hill (1875), Proverb Stories (1882), and Rose in Bloom: A Sequel to Eight Cousins (1876).

Little Women Novel Summary

Coming to Little Women by Louisa May Alcott summary, it's an autobiography written by Louisa May Alcott and published in 1868. In light of the four different characters Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, she has brilliantly conveyed her feminist ideas. She's depicted the household struggles that women experience in a subtle yet powerful way. In an era when marriage was assumed to be every woman's fate, Louisa questioned the dominance of men in society and put herself out there to fight for money and life. Her opinion on marriage as an economic proposition is presented clearly in the novel, which raises problems about women's rights and financial stability in marriage. Her life takes her through numerous phases, which she has penned in Little Women, as a result of her love to write and to become one of a kind.

Style of Writing

Alcott read a wide range of works, from political writings to plays to fiction, and was primarily influenced by Charlotte Bront and George Sand's work. Alcott's writing was smart, honest, and humorous. Despite misery and poverty, her work maintained a conviction in the ultimate joy to be found in love and God's grace, as her voice grew and tempered through war reporting and heartbreaking family tragedies. Little Women and its sequels are beloved for their delightful and accurate portrayals of the lives and inner thoughts of American girls, a rarity in Louisa's time's literary landscape. Some critics consider Alcott to be a proto-feminist because she wrote about women's work and their creative potential. Alcott's fabulistic anecdotes often included radical morality and intellectual instruction, typically in line with the beliefs of Transcendentalists like Bronson. Despite this, she managed to keep true to life, without falling too far into the symbolism popular at the time among Romantic writers.

Her audience included people of all ages, including children and old people. A.M. Barnard was the pen name she used for several of her writings. Her works are focused primarily on women's power, eventually coming to a very practical conclusion. Her literary style was mostly that of a violent storyteller. Men thought the plot of women dying for the country was unsuitable, so her works were regarded as strange and impractical by the press. The portrayal of women as self-sufficient, employed, and powerful was a very radical approach, and as a result, many of her works were either not published or she was forced to alter the endings of the stories, which eventually led to the women's marriage.

Death and Legacy

As her condition worsened, Alcott formally adopted her nephew John Pratt and gave all of the Little Women copyrights to him, with the condition that he split royalties with his brother Lulu and mother. Shortly after, Alcott left Boston's responsibilities behind to spend the winter of 1887 in Roxbury, Massachusetts with her friend Dr. Rhoda Lawrence. On March 1, 1888, she returned to Boston to see her ailing father and developed a cold. Bronson Alcott died on March 4th, and Louisa Alcott died on March 6th. Louisa May Alcott cause of death was spinal meningitis. Because Louisa was so close to her father, their deaths were soaked in symbolism; her obituary in the New York Times spent several pages describing Bronson's funeral.

Louisa May Alcott books value is very deep as it enhances the willpower of a woman. Her eight young adult novels have never gone out of print, and they are extensively read by students across the country and around the world. Little Women is still Alcott's most well-known work, as it was the book that propelled her to fame. Little Women had more influence on American high schools than the Bible, according to a controversial research published in 1927. The book is frequently adapted for stage, film, and television. Little Women has impacted writers and philosophers all over the world. There have also been six feature film adaptations of Little Women, with prominent names like Katherine Hepburn and Winona Ryder starring in them. Greta Gerwig's 2019 version differs from the book by including details of Alcott's life and emphasising the book's autobiographical nature.

Conclusion

In the year 1832, Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania. She later relocated to New England, where she spent the rest of her life. Alcott was a committed abolitionist and feminist. When she could, she worked as a teacher, but she spent most of her time writing. Her most renowned work was the 1868 Little Women, a record of the March sisters' lives. She authored many short stories in many publications and numerous novels, her most famous work being the 1868 Little Women, a chronicle of the March sisters' lives. Jo March, her main character, was based on Alcott's own experiences. In Concord, Massachusetts, she was the first woman to register to vote in 1879. Alcott died in 1888 without ever marrying. Alcott wrote in the handwritten journal that she wrote it when she was seventeen years old and that it was her first novel. The Inheritance, a novel, was released in 1997. Another previously unpublished book, A Long Fatal Love Chase, was published in 1995 and is a spicy narrative comparable to contemporary romance novels.