July 13, 2025
Louisa May Alcott: ‘Little Women’ and More
Louisa May Alcott, best known for her novel Little Women, was born on November 29, 1832, in Germantown, Pennsylvania. She was the second child of four for Abigail May and Bronson Alcott. Her parents were transcendentalists, and her father founded the Fruitlands, a utopian community. It failed, and Louisa knew she could not count on him to care for his family. Still, her father did educate her at his own school and then at home. Louisa also learned from Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Nathanial Hawthorne.
From Work to Writer
Louisa worked as a teacher and a domestic to help support her family. Peterson’s Magazine was the first to publish one of her poems. Sunlight appeared in 1851; she used the pseudonym, Flora Fairfield. In 1854, she published a collection of short stories, Flower Fables, to enough success that her family realized she could make a living as a writer. The family did their best to give Louisa the time to write by taking over her teaching duties. Louisa’s writing income wasn’t enough, and the family had to move to New Hampshire in 1855. Louisa returned to Boston shortly after to be closer to her publishers.
American Civil War
During the Civil War, she volunteered as a nurse until she contracted typhoid and was sent home. The typhoid and its mercury treatment would affect her health for the rest of her life. She published her letters, Hospital Sketches, in 1863, and it was a success.
Any Other Name
Louisa published pulp fiction works under a second pseudonym: A.M. Barnard. These books tended to be “lurid and violent.” They often featured women as the protagonist and were among her favorite novels to write. However, Louisa did not consider them reputable and used her pen name to give her some distance from the works.
Little Women, 1868
Louisa’s publisher asked for a children’s book, and she wrote Little Women. It was a such a success that she would never have to worry about money again. She would have to write sequels, though. After the success of Little Women, Louisa was able to pay off all her family’s debts in 1869. In 1870, Louisa and her sister May went to Europe.
The End
Louisa kept copious journals but destroyed many of them before she died. She was a private person and figured people would read any of the journals she didn’t get rid of. She never married and had no children of her own. In 1880, Louisa adopted her niece after May’s death. Louisa May Alcott died on March 6, 1888 in Boston, Massachusetts.
The Works of Louisa May Alcott
The Little Women series:
- Little Women, or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy (1868)
- Good Wives (1869)
- Little Men: Life at Plumfield with Jo’s Boys (1871)
- Jo’s Boys and How They Turned Out: A Sequel to “Little Men” (1886)
Novels:
- The Inheritance (1849, unpublished until 1997)
- Moods (1865, revised 1882)
- An Old Fashioned Girl (1870)
- Will’s Wonder Book (1870)
- Work: A Story of Experience (1873)
- Beginning Again, Being a Continuation of Work (1875)
- Eight Cousins, or The Aunt Hill (1875)
- Rose in Bloom: A Sequel to Eight Cousins (1876)
- Under the Lilacs (1878)
- Jack and Jill: A Village Story (1880)
As A. M. Barnard:
- A Marble Woman; or, The Mysterious Model (1865)
- Behind a Mask, or a Woman’s Power (1866)
- The Abbot’s Ghost, or Maurice Treherne’s Temptation (1867)
- A Long Fatal Love Chase (1866; first published 1995)
- “V.V., or Plots and Counterplots” (1865)
Published anonymously:
- A Pair of Eyes, or Modern Magic (1863)
- A Modern Mephistopheles (1877)
- “Doctor Dorn’s Revenge” (1868)
- “Fatal Follies” (1868)
- “Taming a Tartar”
- “Fate in a Fan”
Novellas:
- Hospital Sketches (1863)
- Pauline’s Passion and Punishment (1863)
- My Contraband, first published as The Brothers (1863)
- A Whisper in the Dark (1863)
- The Freak of a Genius (1866)
- The Mysterious Key and What It Opened (1867)
- La Jeune; or, Actress and Woman (1868)
- Countess Varazoff (1868)
- The Romance of a Bouquet (1868)
- A Laugh and A Look (1868)
- Transcendental Wild Oats (1873)
- Silver Pitchers, and Independence: A Centennial Love Story (1876)
- The Fate of the Forrests
- A Double Tragedy: An Actor’s Story
- Ariel, A Legend of the Lighthouse
- A Nurse’s Story
Short story collections:
- Flower Fables (1854), includes the Frost King
- On Picket Duty, and other tales (1864)
- Morning-Glories and Other Stories (1867)
- Kitty’s Class Day and Other Stories (Three Proverb Stories) (1868)
- Aunt Jo’s Scrap-Bag (1872–1882). (66 short stories in six volumes)
- “Aunt Jo’s Scrap-Bag”
- “Shawl-Straps”
- “Cupid and Chow-Chow”
- “My Girls, Etc.”
- “Jimmy’s Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc.”
- “An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc.”
- Proverb Stories (1882)
- Spinning-Wheel Stories (1884)
- Lulu’s Library (1886–1889)
- A Garland for Girls (1887)
Short stories:
- “The Rival Painters: A Tale of Rome” (1852)
- “Love and Self-Love” (1860)
- “Enigmas” (1864)
- “The Skeleton in the Closet” (1867)
- “My Mysterious Mademoiselle” (1869)
- “Lost in a Pyramid; or, The Mummy’s Curse” (1869)
- “Perilous Play” (1876)
- “The Candy Country” (1885)
- “Which Wins?”
- “Honor’s Fortune”
- “Mrs. Vane’s Charade”
Poems:
- “Sunlight” (1851)
- “My Kingdom” (written 1845, published 1875)
- “The Children’s Song” (written 1860, published 1889)
- “Young America” (1861)
- “With A Rose That Bloomed on the Day of John Brown’s Martyrdom” (1862)
- “Thoreau’s Flute” (1863)
- “In the Garret” (1865)
- “The Sanitary Fair” (1865)
- “Come, Butter, Come” (1867)
- “What Shall the Little Children Bring” (1884)
- “Oh, the Beautiful Old Story” (1886)
- “The Fairy Spring” (1887)
Posthumous:
- “Recollections of My Childhood” (1888)
- Comic Tragedies (1893)
- Morning-Glories and Queen Aster (1904)
- Diana and Persis (1978, incomplete manuscript)
- The Brownie and the Princess (2004)
Sources: