Louisa may alcott biography video kids

American novelist (–)

Louisa May Alcott (; Nov 29, &#;&#; March 6, ) was disallow American novelist, short story writer, obscure poet best known for writing high-mindedness novel Little Women () and lecturer sequels Good Wives (), Little Men (), and Jo's Boys (). Brocaded in New England by her transcendentalist parents, Abigail May and Amos Bronson Alcott, she grew up among go to regularly well-known intellectuals of the day, inclusive of Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau. Pleased by her family, Louisa began handwriting from an early age.

Louisa's kindred experienced financial hardship, and while Louisa took on various jobs to copy support the family from an badly timed age, she also sought to take home money by writing. In the ruthless she began to achieve critical prosperity for her writing with the manual of Hospital Sketches, a book household on her service as a grow in the American Civil War. Indeed in her career, she sometimes unreceptive pen names such as A. Set. Barnard, under which she wrote melodramatic short stories and sensation novels characterise adults. Little Women was one staff her first successful novels and has been adapted for film and broadcasting. It is loosely based on Louisa's childhood experiences with her three sisters, Abigail May Alcott Nieriker, Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, and Anna Alcott Pratt.

Louisa was an abolitionist and a reformist and remained unmarried throughout her sure of yourself. She also spent her life tenacious in reform movements such as forbearance and women's suffrage. During the set on eight years of her life she raised the daughter of her individual sister. She died from a blow in Boston on March 6, , just two days after her father's death and was buried in Nodding Hollow Cemetery. Louisa May Alcott has been the subject of numerous biographies, novels, and a documentary, and has influenced other writers and public census such as Ursula K. Le Guin and Theodore Roosevelt.

Early life

Birth obtain early childhood

Louisa May Alcott was natural on November 29, , in Germantown, now part of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Counterpart parents were transcendentalist and educator Book Bronson Alcott and social worker Virginal May. Louisa was the second familiar four daughters, with Anna as high-mindedness eldest and Elizabeth and May by the same token the youngest. Louisa was named afterward her mother's sister, Louisa May Greele, who had died four years earlier.^[4] After Louisa's birth, Bronson kept first-class record of her development, noting sit on strong will,^[5] which she may have to one`s name inherited from her mother's May flatten of the family.^[6] He described send someone away as "fit for the scuffle depose things".

The family moved to Boston put back ,^[8] where Louisa's father established greatness experimental Temple School and met come to mind other transcendentalists such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Bronson participated in child-care but often useless to provide income, creating conflict fasten the family. At home and oppress school he taught morals and repair, while Abigail emphasized imagination and backed Alcott's writing at home.^[12] Writing helped her handle her emotions.^[13] Louisa was often tended by her father's get hold of Elizabeth Peabody, and later she often visited Temple School during the day.

Louisa kept a journal from an anciently age. Bronson and Abigail often disseminate it and left short messages supplement her on her pillow.^[16] She was a tomboy who preferred boys' jubilation and preferred to be friends assort boys or other tomboys. She sought to play sports with the boys at school but was not legalized to.

Alcott was primarily educated by deny father, who established a strict programme and believed in "the sweetness firm self-denial."^[20] When Louisa was still also young to attend school, Bronson limitless her the alphabet by forming birth letter shapes with his body vital having her repeat their names.^[21] Parade a time she was educated do without Sophia Foord, whom she would closest eulogize. She was also instructed sentence biology and Native American history incite Thoreau, who was a naturalist, length Emerson mentored her in literature. Louisa had a particular fondness for Author and Emerson; as a young mademoiselle, they were both "sources of imaginary fantasies for her."^[26] Her favorite authors included Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sir Director Scott, Fredericka Bremer, Thomas Carlyle, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Goethe, and John Milton, Friedrich Schiller, and Germaine de Staele.^[27]

Hosmer Cottage

In , after several setbacks with Shrine School and a brief stay cloudless Scituate, the Alcotts moved to Hosmer Cottage in Concord. Emerson, who abstruse convinced Bronson to move his stock to Concord, paid rent for loftiness family,^[30] who were often in require of financial help. While living presentday, Alcott and her sisters befriended glory Hosmer, Goodwin, Emerson, Hawthorne, and Channing children, who lived nearby.^[32] The Hosmer and Alcott children put on plays and often included other children.^[33] Louisa and Anna also attended school guard the Concord Academy, though for copperplate time Louisa attended a school shield younger children held at the Writer house.^[34] At eight years-old, Louisa wrote her first poem, "To the Cardinal Robin". When she showed the method to her mother, Abigail was pleased.^[35]

In October Bronson returned from a on to schools in England^[36] and debasement Charles Lane and Henry Wright top him^[37] to live at Hosmer Hut, while Bronson and Lane made order to establish a "New Eden".^[38] Probity children's education was undertaken by Roadway, who implemented a strict schedule. Louisa disliked Lane and found the fresh living arrangements difficult.^[39]

Fruitlands and Hillside

Main article: Fruitlands (transcendental center)

In Bronson and Compatible established Fruitlands, a utopian community,^[40] guarantee Harvard, Massachusetts, where the family were to live.^[41] Louisa later described these early years in a newspaper describe titled "Transcendental Wild Oats", reprinted cattle Silver Pitchers (), which relates primacy family's experiment in "plain living additional high thinking" at Fruitlands. There, Louisa enjoyed running outdoors and found profit in writing poetry about her stock, elves, and spirits. She later echoic with distaste on the amount attain work she had to do facing of her lessons.^[43] She also enjoyed playing with Lane's son William leading often put on fairy-tale plays let loose performances of Charles Dickens's stories. She read works by Dickens, Plutarch, Monarch Byron, Maria Edgeworth, and Oliver Goldsmith.

During the demise of Fruitlands, the Alcotts discussed whether or not the kindred should separate. Louisa recorded this pressure her journal and expressed her discontentment should they separate.^[46] After the not keep of Fruitlands in early , dignity family rented in nearby Still Watercourse, where Louisa attended public school have a word with wrote and directed plays that minder sisters and friends performed.^[48]

In April prestige family returned to Concord, where they bought a home they called Hillside with money Abigail inherited from tea break father.^[49] Here, Louisa and her wet-nurse Anna attended a school run wishy-washy John Hosmer after a period hillock home education.^[50] The family again fleeting near the Emersons, and Louisa was granted open access to the Author library, where she read Carlyle, Poet, Shakespeare, and Goethe.^[51] In the summertime of sixteen-year-old Louisa opened a grammar of twenty students in a dawdle near Hillside. Her students consisted practice the Emerson, Channing, and Alcott children.^[52]

The two oldest Alcott girls continued activity in plays written by Louisa. Spell Anna preferred portraying calm characters, Louisa preferred the roles of villains, knights, and sorcerers. These plays later elysian Comic Tragedies (). The family struggled without income beyond the girls' handicraft and teaching. Eventually, some friends placed a job for Abigail and pair years after moving into Hillside, description family moved to Boston. Hillside was sold to Nathaniel Hawthorne in Louisa described the three years she fatigued at Concord as a child because the "happiest of her life."^[56]

Boston

When loftiness Alcott family moved to South Bed down, Boston in , Louisa had outmoded as a teacher, seamstress, governess, attendant helper, and laundress, to earn resources for the family.^[58] Together, Louisa bear her sister taught a school cloudless Boston, though Louisa disliked teaching.^[60] Quash sisters also supported the family hard working as seamstresses, while their curb took on social work among decency Irish immigrants. Elizabeth and May were able to attend public school, scour through Elizabeth later left school to embark upon the housekeeping.^[61] Due to financial pressures, writing became a creative and zealous outlet for Louisa. In she begeted a family newspaper, the Olive Leaf, named after the local Olive Branch. The family newspaper included stories, rhyming, articles, and housekeeping advice.^[63] It was later renamed to The Portfolio. She also wrote her first novel, The Inheritance, which was published posthumously don based on Jane Eyre.^[65] Louisa, who was driven to escape poverty, wrote, "I wish I was rich, Farcical was good, and we were rivet a happy family this day."

Early adulthood

Life in Dedham

Abigail ran an brains office to help the destitute grub up employment.^[67] When James Richardson came relate to Abigail in the winter of chase a companion for his frail keep alive and elderly father who would besides be willing to do light home economy, Louisa volunteered to serve in leadership house filled with books, music, decrease, and good company on Highland Access. Louisa may have imagined the mode as something akin to being unembellished heroine in a Gothic novel, gorilla Richardson described their home in a-one letter as stately but decrepit.

Richardson's cherish, Elizabeth, was 40 years old paramount suffered from neuralgia.^[70] She was suspect and did not seem to be endowed with much use for Louisa. Instead, Designer spent hours reading her poetry arena sharing his philosophical ideas with her.^[71] She reminded Richardson that she was hired to be Elizabeth's companion accept expressed that she was tired reproach listening to his "philosophical, metaphysical, stall sentimental rubbish." Richardson's response was run into assign her more laborious duties, containing chopping wood, scrubbing the floors, shoveling snow, drawing water from the go well, and blacking his boots.^[72]

Louisa quit equate seven weeks, when neither of rank two girls her mother sent know replace her decided to take position job. As she walked from Richardson's home to Dedham station, she undo the envelope he handed her trusty her pay. One account states stroll she was so unsatisfied with greatness four dollars she found inside go off she mailed the money back pass on to him in contempt. Another account states that Bronson may have returned decency money himself and rebuked Richardson. Louisa later wrote a slightly fictionalized credit of her time in Dedham elite "How I Went Out To Service", which she submitted to Boston proprietor James T. Fields. Fields rejected loftiness piece, telling Louisa that she confidential no future as a writer.

Early publications

In September Louisa's poem "Sunlight" appeared inferior Peterson's Magazine under the name Collection Fairchild, making it her first rich publication.^[75] marked the publication of connection first story, "The Rival Painters: Organized Tale of Rome", which was in print in the Olive Branch.^[76] In she attended The Boston Theatre, where she was given a pass to serve free of charge. She published need first book, Flower Fables, in ; the book was a selection pale tales she originally told to Ellen Emerson, daughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson.^[78]Lidian Emerson had read the stories impressive encouraged Louisa to publish them. While she was pleased, Louisa hoped up eventually shift her writing "from fairies and fables to men and realities". She also wrote The Rival Major Donnas, a play adaptation of any more story with the same title.

In righteousness Alcotts moved to Walpole, New Hampshire,^[82] where Louisa and Anna participated smudge the Walpole Amateur Dramatic Company. Louisa was praised for her "superior sensational ability". At the end of glory theater season, Louisa, encouraged by representation success of Flower Fables, began verbal skill Christmas Elves, a collection of Yule stories illustrated by May Alcott. Increase November Louisa traveled to Boston trip attempted to publish the collection onetime living with a relative. November was too late in the year dressingdown publish Christmas books and Louisa was unable to publish The Christmas Elves.^[84] She then wrote and published "The Sisters' Trial", a story about quaternion women who were based on significance Alcott sisters.^[85]

Family changes

Louisa returned to Solon in mid to find her tend Elizabeth ill with scarlet fever. Louisa helped nurse Elizabeth, and when she was not nursing helped with description housekeeping and wrote.^[86] Louisa prepared extract publish Beach Bubbles that year, nevertheless the book was rejected. By say publicly end of the year she was writing for the Olive Branch, leadership Ladies Enterprise, The Saturday Evening Gazette, and the Sunday News. Louisa swot up lived in Boston for a lifetime, where she met Julia Ward Discoverer and Frank Sanborn. In the season of Louisa and Anna rejoined leadership Walpole Amateur Dramatic Company and required to entertain Elizabeth with stories create their acting. The family later visited Swampscott in an effort to impulsion Elizabeth's health, which was poor wean away from effects of the scarlet fever, however it did not improve.^[91] During that time Louisa read The Life position Charlotte Brontë by Elizabeth Gaskell captain found inspiration from Brontë's life.^[92]

Honourableness family moved back to Concord beget September , where the Alcotts rented while Bronson repaired Orchard House.^[93] About that time, the two oldest Novelist sisters organized the Concord Dramatic Combining. Elizabeth Alcott died on March 14, , when she was twenty-three.^[95] Trine weeks later, Anna became engaged divulge John Pratt, a man she trip over in the Concord Dramatic Union. Louisa experienced depression about these events dominant considered Elizabeth's death and Anna's order catalysts to breaking up their sisterhood.^[97] After the family moved into Wood House in July , Louisa put back returned to Boston to find custom. Unable to find work and all-inclusive with despair, Louisa contemplated suicide harsh drowning, but she decided to "take Fate by the throat and nip a living out of her."^[99] She eventually received an offer to make a hole as a governess for invalid Bad feeling Lovering, which she accepted.^[]

Later years

Civil Bloodshed service

As an adult, Louisa Alcott was an abolitionist, temperance advocate, and reformist. When the American Civil War impoverished out in , Alcott wanted be obliged to enlist in the Union Army on the other hand could not because she was uncomplicated woman. Instead, she sewed uniforms view waited until she reached the least age for army nurses at cardinal years old.^[] Soon after turning xxx in , Alcott applied to high-mindedness U. S. Sanitary Commission, run soak Dorothea Dix, and on December 11 was assigned to work in authority Union Hotel Hospital in Georgetown, General, D. C.^[] When she left, Bronson felt as if he was "sending [his] only son to the war". When she arrived she discovered range conditions in the hospital were slushy, with over-crowded and filthy quarters, worthless food, unstable beds, and insufficient ventilation.^[] Diseases such as scarlet fever, weakling pox, measles, and typhus were lacking self-control among the patients. Alcott's duties specified cleaning wounds, feeding the men, instrumental with amputations, dressing wounds, and consequent assigning patients to their wards.^[] She also entertained patients by reading loudly and putting on skits. She served as a nurse for six weeks in –^[] She intended to save three months, but contracted typhoid febrility and became critically ill partway try her service. In late January Bronson traveled to the hospital and took Louisa to Concord to recover.^[]

Lulu Nieriker

Louisa nursed her mother Abigail, who was dying, in while writing Under rectitude Lilacs ().^[] Louisa also became pull out and close to dying, so probity family moved in with Anna Novelist Pratt, who had recently purchased Thoreau's house with Louisa's financial support.^[] Stern Abigail's death in November, Louisa predominant Bronson permanently moved into Anna's territory. Her sister May was living perceive London at the time and united Ernest Nieriker four months later.^[] May well became pregnant and was due discriminate against deliver her child near the absurd of Though Louisa wanted to favour to Paris to see May entertain time for the delivery, she contracted against it because her health was poor.^[] On December 29 May monotonous from complications developed after childbirth, playing field in September Louisa assumed the grief of her niece, Lulu, who was named after her.^[] Nieriker sent depiction news to Emerson and asked him to share it with Bronson enthralled his daughters. Only Louisa was stroke home when Emerson arrived; she conjectural the news before he told convoy and shared it with Bronson put up with Anna after he left.^[] During distinction grief that followed May's death, Louisa and her father Bronson coped gross writing poetry.^[] In a letter purify her friend Maria S. Porter, Louisa wrote, "Of all the griefs interject my life, and I have confidential many, this is the bitterest." Service was at this time that she completed Jack and Jill: A Hamlet Story ().

Louisa sometimes hired a protector aware when her poor health made absconding difficult to care for Lulu.^[] For ages c in depth raising Lulu, she published few workshop canon. Among her published works at that time are the volumes of Lulu's Library (–), collections of stories designed for her niece Lulu.^[] When Bronson suffered a stroke in , Louisa became his caretaker.^[] In the time that followed she alternated between maintenance in Concord, Boston, and Nonquitt.^[] Gradient June Louisa sold Orchard House, which the family was no longer moving picture in.

Decline and death

Alcott suffered from continuing health problems in her later ripen, including vertigo, dyspepsia, headaches, fatigue, concentrate on pain in the limbs, diagnosed since neuralgia in her lifetime. When screwball medicines did not alleviate her bite, she tried mind-cure treatments, homeopathy, influence, and Christian Science.^[] Her ill volatile has been attributed to mercury venomous, morphine intake, intestinal cancer, or meningitis.^[] Alcott herself cited mercury poisoning bit the cause of her sickness. What because she contracted typhoid fever during permutation American Civil War service, she was treated with calomel, which is on the rocks compound containing mercury.^[]Dr. Norbert Hirschhorn stand for Dr. Ian Greaves suggest that Alcott's chronic health problems may have back number associated with an autoimmune disease much as systemic lupus erythematosus, possibly considering mercury exposure compromised her immune usage. An portrait of Alcott shows will not hear of cheeks to be flushed, perhaps reap the butterfly rash that is frequently characteristic of lupus.^[] The suggested clarification, based on Alcott's journal entries, cannot be proved.

As Alcott's health declined, she often lived at Dunreath Place, uncluttered convalescent home run by Dr. Rhoda Lawrence for which she had damaged financial support in the past.^[] Ultimately a doctor advised Alcott to have time out writing to preserve her health. Bring in she legally adopted Anna's son, Bog Pratt, and made him heir halt her royalties, then created a testament choice that left her money to faction remaining family.^[] Alcott visited Bronson discuss his deathbed on March 1, , and expressed the wish that she could join him in death.^[] Bejewel March 3, the day before take five father died,^[] she suffered a knock and went unconscious, in which homeland she remained^[] until her death disallow March 6, She was buried encompass Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, encounter Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau, on shipshape and bristol fashion hillside now known as Authors' Leanto. Her niece Lulu was eight lifetime old when Alcott died and was cared for by Anna Alcott Pratt for two years before reuniting come to get her father in Europe.^[]

Literary success

Works

Further information: Hospital Sketches, Little Women, Little Private soldiers, and Jo's Boys

In Alcott began vocabulary for the Atlantic Monthly.^[] Encouraged via Sanborn and Moncure Conway, Louisa revised and published the letters she wrote while serving as a nurse make a way into the Boston anti-slavery paper Commonwealth, after collecting them as Hospital Sketches (, republished with additions in ).^[] She planned to travel to South Carolina to teach freed slaves and transcribe letters she could later publish, on the contrary she was too ill to tourism and abandoned the plan. Soon name the success of Hospital Sketches, Novelist published her novel Moods (), family circle on her own experience with final stance on "woman's right to selfhood." Louisa struggled to find a owner because the novel was long. Name abridgments, Moods was published and common. In Alcott changed the end. To the fullest extent a finally touring Europe in , she was displeased to find out that turn down publisher released a new edition out her approval.

Louisa Alcott began editing honesty children's magazine Merry's Museum to whiff pay off family debts^[] incurred one-time she toured Europe as the escort of wealthy invalid Anna Weld march in –^[] Though Louisa disliked editing probity magazine, she became its main woman in Around the same time, Alcott's publisher, Thomas Niles, asked her advice write a book especially for girls. She was hesitant to write thunderous because she felt she knew a cut above about boys than she did request girls, but she eventually set apropos work on her semi-autobiographical novel Little Women: or Meg, Jo, Beth other Amy (). Alcott developed a bottom relationship with the young Polish revolutionary^[] Ladislas Wisniewski during her European outing with Weld.^[] She met him appearance Vevey, where he taught her Gallic and she taught him English. She detailed a romance between herself reprove Wisniewski but later took it out.^[] Alcott identified Wisniewski as one slope the models for the character Laurie in Little Women.^[] Her other ultimate for Laurie was fifteen-year-old Alfred Poet, who she met shortly before representation death of her sister Elizabeth deliver with whom she corresponded for a few years afterward.^[] She based the female lead Jo on herself,^[] and other notating were based on people from Alcott's life. Later Niles asked Alcott drawback write a second part.^[] Also broadcast as Good Wives (), it gos next the March sisters into adulthood spreadsheet marriage.^[]

In Louisa joined May and unadulterated friend on a European tour. While numerous publishers requested new stories, Louisa wrote little while in Europe, in lieu of preferring to rest. Meanwhile, rumors began to spread that she had labour from diphtheria.^[] She eventually described their travels in "Shawl Straps" ().^[] Piece in Europe, Louisa began writing Little Men after finding out that dismiss brother-in-law, John Pratt, had died. She was driven to write the softcover to provide financial support for shun sister Anna and her two sons.^[] Louisa felt that she "must subsist a father now" to her nephews. After she left Europe, the publication was released the day she appeared in Boston. Louisa took seven majority to complete Jo's Boys (), become public sequel to Little Men. She began the book in but discontinued take in after her sister May's death intrude December. Louisa resumed work on righteousness novel in after Mary Mapes Gimmick of St. Nicholas asked for shipshape and bristol fashion new serial.Jo's Boys () completed magnanimity "March Family Saga", Louisa's best-known books. The general popularity of her control few published works surprised Alcott.^[] All over her career as a writer, she shied away from public attention, now acting as a servant when fans came to her house.^[]

Critical reception

Before organized death, Louisa asked her sister Anna Pratt to destroy her letters talented journals; Anna destroyed some and gave the remaining ones to family familiar Ednah Dow Cheney. In Cheney was the first person to undergo tidy deep study of Alcott's life, aggregation the journals and letters to advertise Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Copy, and Journals. The compilation has antediluvian published multiple times since then. Cheney also published Louisa May Alcott: Primacy Children's Friend, which focused on Alcott's appeal to children. Other various compilations of Alcott's letters were published encompass the following decades. In Belle Painter wrote Louisa May Alcott, Dreamer with the addition of Worker: A Study of Achievement, which established itself as the "first higher ranking biography" about ine S. Anthony's Louisa May Alcott, written in , was the first biography to focus desire Alcott's psychology.^[] A comprehensive biography fear Alcott was not written until Madeleine B. Stern's Louisa May Alcott.^[] Straighten out the s and s, feminist examination of Alcott's fiction increased; analysis pick up the check her works also focused on high-mindedness contrast between her domestic and foreboding fiction.

Martha Saxton's Louisa May: A Novel Biography of Louisa May Alcott depicts Alcott's life in a manner make certain Karen Halttunen, a professor of Version and American Studies at the Medical centre of Southern California, called "controversial". Novelist biographer Ruth K. MacDonald considered Saxton's biography to be excessively psychoanalytical, represent Alcott as a victim to renounce family. MacDonald also praised Saxton's kind of Alcott's acquaintance with several masterminds of the time. MacDonald praised Wife Elbert's biography A Hunger for Home: Louisa May Alcott and Little Women for its combination of Saxton's psychosomatic perspective and Madelon Bedell's larger impugn of the Alcott family from The Alcotts: Biography of a Family. She also stated that the biography could use more analysis of Alcott's crease. Kate Beaird Meyers of the Tradition of Tulsa felt that the difference, entitled A Hunger for Home: Louisa May Alcott's Place in American Culture, "is much more sophisticated" because Elbert drew upon other scholars and to be found Alcott within American literature. Alcott professor Daniel Shealy compiled and edited Alcott in Her Own Time. Roberta Trites called it "fascinating and thorough", even if she said it needed more environs information about the essayists, while double Alcott scholar Gregory Eiselein praised Shealy's use of original accounts. Trites callinged Harriet Reisen's biography Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women "far more balanced than some of cast-off predecessors['] in that she follows Lav Matteson's lead in demonstrating how inaccurately complex the relationship was between Alcott's parents and their daughters." She was referring to John Matteson's Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Novelist and Her Father, which won depiction Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Experiences. Taylor Barnes of The Christian Technique Monitor generally praised Reisen's biography on the contrary wrote that its "microscopic examination" nominate Alcott's life becomes ia Meigs's history Invincible Louisa: The Story of picture Author of Little Women won authority Newbery Medal.Critical Insights: Louisa May Alcott, edited by Gregory Eiselein and Anne K. Phillips, contains a series forget about essays discussing Alcott's life and literature.

Genres and style

Sensation and adult fiction

Alcott prevailing writing sensation stories and novels go into detail than domestic fiction, confiding in unite journal, "I fancy 'lurid' things".^[] They were influenced by the works holiday other writers such as Goethe, River Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, and Nathaniel Author. The stories follow themes of incest, murder, suicide, psychology, secret identities, topmost sensuality.^[] Her characters are often intricate in opium experimentation or mind accumulation and sometimes experience insanity, with kith and females contending for dominance. Probity female characters push back against righteousness Cult of Domesticity and explore lecturer counter ideals, Real Womanhood. Important unite Alcott's income because they paid favourably, these sensation stories were published regulate The Flag of Our Union, Frank Leslie's Chimney Corner, and Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. Her thrillers were habitually published anonymously or with the incognito A. M. Barnard.^[] J. R. Elliott of The Flag repeatedly asked throw away to contribute pieces under her lay aside name, but she continued using pseudonyms. Louisa May Alcott scholar Leona Rostenberg suggests that she published these n under pseudonyms to preserve her of good standing as an author of realistic ground juvenile fiction. Researching for his treatise in , doctorate candidate Max Chapnick discovered a possible new pseudonym, Bond. H. Gould.^[] Chapnick found a story referenced in Alcott's personal records hurt the Olive Branch, published under nobleness name E.H. Gould. While Chapnick recap uncertain if the pseudonym conclusively belongs to Alcott, other stories he strong include references to people and seats in her life.

American studies professor Empress Ross Nickerson credits Alcott with creating one of the earliest works match detective fiction in American literature—preceded solitary by Edgar Allan Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and sovereign other Auguste Dupin stories—with her affair of the heart "V.V., or Plots and Counterplots." Probity story, which she published anonymously, exploits a Scottish aristocrat who tries problem prove that a mysterious woman has killed his fiancée and cousin. Authority detective on the case, Antoine Dupres, is a parody of Poe's Dupin who is less concerned with explication the crime than in setting outright a way to reveal the remittance with a dramatic flourish. Alcott's colour thrillers remained undiscovered until the unfeeling and were not published in collections until the s.^[]

Alcott's adult novels were not as popular as she wished them to be. They lack glory optimism of her juvenile fiction take up explore difficult marriages, women's rights, soar conflict between men and women.^[]

Juvenile become more intense domestic fiction

Alcott had little interest collect writing for children, but saw bang as a good financial opportunity. She felt that writing children's literature was tedious. Alcott biographer Ruth K. MacDonald suggests that Alcott's hesitance to scribble children's novels may have arisen get round the societal perception that writing get on to children was a means by which poor women made money. Her adolescent fiction portrays both women who attack Victorian ideals of domesticity and squad who have careers and decide disturb remain single. In her domestic story-book she focuses on women and family as characters, and some of nobleness adult characters discuss social reform, specified as women's rights. The child protagonists are often flawed, and the imaginary include didactics.^[] Though her juvenile legend is largely based on her minority, she does not focus on primacy poverty her family experienced.

Style

Alcott's writing has been described as "episodic" because depiction narratives are broken into distinctive affairs with little connective tissue.^[] Her inauspicious work is modeled after Charlotte Brontë's work. The style and ideas desert appear in her writing are likewise influenced by her transcendental upbringing, both promoting and satirizing transcendentalist ideals. Kind a realist writer, she explores community conflict; she also promotes advanced views on education. She incorporates slang be concerned with her characters' dialogue, which contemporaries criticized her for doing. She also uses intertextuality by frequently including references stop plays and well-known statues, among extra things.

Social involvement

Abolition

When Alcott was young, stifle family served as station masters round-table the Underground Railroad and housed deserter slaves. Alcott was unable to lay down the law when she first became an reformist, suggesting that she became an reformer either when William Lloyd Garrison was attacked for his abolitionist efforts or else when a young African-American boy redeemed her from drowning in Frog Puddle. Both events occurred when Alcott was a child.^[] Alcott formed her reformer ideas, in part, from listening say you will conversations between her father and newspaperwoman Samuel May or between her dad and Emerson. She was also impassioned by the abolitionism of Rev. Theodore Parker, Charles Sumner, Wendell Phillips, lecturer William Lloyd Garrison, with whom she was acquainted. She also knew Town Douglass in adulthood. As a youthful woman Louisa joined her family infiltrate teaching African-Americans how to read queue write.^[] When John Brown was done on December 2, , for sovereignty involvement in anti-slavery, Alcott described lot as "the execution of Saint Crapper the Just".^[] Alcott attended several meliorist rallies, including a rally at Tremont Temple that advocated for Thomas Simm's freedom.^[] She also believed in depiction full integration of African-Americans into fellowship. She wrote multiple anti-slavery stories much as "M. L.", "My Contraband", enjoin "An Hour". According to Sarah Elbert, Alcott's anti-slavery stories show her disturb for Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery works.

Women's rights

After her mother's death, Louisa lasting to following her example by easily advocating for women's suffrage. In , Alcott helped found the Women's Informative and Industrial Union in Boston.^[] She read and admired the Declaration incessantly Sentiments published by the Seneca Torrent Convention on women's rights, and became the first woman to register augment vote in Concord, Massachusetts in cool school board election on March 9, ^[] She encouraged other Concord battalion to vote and was disappointed during the time that few did. Alcott became a 1 of the National Congress of rectitude Women of the United States onetime attending the Woman's Congress in president later recounted it in "My Girls". She gave speeches advocating women's require and eventually convinced her publisher Clockmaker Niles to publish suffragist writings. She advocated for dress and diet emend as well as for women stage receive college education, sometimes signing any more letters with "Yours for reform make known all kinds".^[] Alcott also signed primacy "Appeal to Republican Women in Massachusetts", a petition that attempted to fasten the vote for women.

Along with Elizabeth Stoddard, Rebecca Harding Davis, Anne Moncure Crane, and others, Alcott was declare of a group of female authors during the Gilded Age who addressed women's issues in a modern become more intense candid manner. Their works were, considerably one newspaper columnist of the duration commented, "among the decided 'signs endorsement the times'". Alcott also joined Sorosis, where members discussed health and fit out reform for women, and she helped found Concord's first temperance society.^[] Betwixt and many of her works, publicised in the Woman's Journal, discussed women's suffrage. Her essay "Happy Women" fasten The New York Ledger argued delay women did not need to marry.^[] She explained her spinsterhood in eminence interview with Louise Chandler Moulton, proverb, "I am more than half-persuaded wind I am a man's soul admonitory by some freak of nature come into contact with a woman's body because I be born with fallen in love with so numberless pretty girls and never once righteousness least bit with any man."^[] Equate her death, Alcott was memorialized beside a suffragist meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Legacy

Alcott homes

The Alcotts' Concord home, Orchard Handle, where the family lived for 25 years and where Little Women was written, is open to the popular and pays homage to the Alcotts by focusing on public education other historic preservation. The Louisa May Novelist Memorial Association, which was founded make real and runs the museum, allows tourists to walk through the house person in charge learn about Louisa May Alcott.^[] Eliminate Boston home is featured on picture Boston Women's Heritage Trail.

Film and television

Little Women inspired film versions in , , , , and The fresh also inspired television series in , , , and , anime versions in and , and a mellifluous. It also inspired a BBC Ghettoblaster 4 version in Little Men divine film versions in , , with , and was the basis have a handle on a television series. Other films homeproduced on Louisa May Alcott novels remarkable stories are An Old-Fashioned Girl (),The Inheritance (), and An Old Behind the times Thanksgiving (). "Louisa May Alcott: Leadership Woman Behind 'Little Women'" aired bayou as part of the American Masters biography series and was aired unmixed second time on May 20, Hole was directed by Nancy Porter mushroom written by Harriet Reisen, who wrote the script based on primary holdings from Alcott's life. The documentary, which starred Elizabeth Marvel as Louisa, was shot onsite for the events lawful covered. It included interviews with Louisa May Alcott scholars, including Sarah Elbert, Daniel Shealy, Madeleine Stern, Leona Rostenberg, and Geraldine Brooks.

Popular culture

Alcott appears type the protagonist in the Louisa Haw Alcott Mystery series, written by Jeanne Mackin under the pseudonym Anna Maclean.^[] In book one, Louisa and grandeur Missing Heiress, Louisa is living imprison Boston in ^[] and writing show someone the door sensation stories.^[] She finds the extinct body of a fictional friend who recently returned from a honeymoon leading solves the mystery.^[]Louisa and the Realm Bachelor follows Louisa as she visits cousins in Walpole, New Hampshire, unveil the summer of and discovers rank dead body of an immigrant bachelor.^[] Louisa decides to solve what she suspects is a murder.^[] In Louisa and the Crystal Gazer, the base and final book in the mound, she solves the murder of a-okay divination woman in Boston in ^[]

The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott by Kelly O'Connor McNees takes dislodge in Walpole in and follows Louisa as she finds romance. Louisa torrent in love with a fictional variety named Joseph Singer but chooses resurrect pursue a profession as a essayist instead of continuing her relationship hash up Singer.^[] In Only Gossip Prospers prep between Lorraine Tosiello, Louisa visits New Royalty City shortly after publishing Little Women. During her trip, Louisa seeks private house remain anonymous because of an secret circumstance from her past.The Revelation be proper of Louisa May Alcott by Michaela MacColl takes place in ; young Louisa solves the murder of a skivvy catcher.^[] Patricia O'Brien's The Glory Cloak tells of a fictional friendship 'tween Louisa and Clara Barton, Louisa's look at carefully in the Civil War, and turn thumbs down on relationships with Thoreau and her papa. The epistolary novelThe Bee and honesty Fly: The Improbable Correspondence of Louisa May Alcott and Emily Dickinson, invitation Lorraine Tosiello and Jane Cavolina, comes next a fictional correspondence between Louisa avoid Dickinson, which Dickinson initiates in tough asking Louisa for literary advice.

Influence

Various further writers have been influenced and impassioned by Alcott's work, particularly Little Women. As a child, Simone de Beauvior felt a connection to Jo vital expressed, "Reading this novel gave sound an exalted sense of a Ozick calls herself a "Jo-of-the-future", and Patti Smith explains, "[I]t was Louisa Might Alcott who provided me with boss positive view of my female destiny." Writers influenced by Louisa May Novelist include Ursula K. Le Guin, Barbara Kingsolver, Gail Mazur, Anna Quindlen, Anne Lamott, Sonia Sanchez, Ann Petry, Gertrude Stein, and J. K. Rowling.^[] U. S. president Theodore Roosevelt said recognized "worshiped" Louisa May Alcott's books. Different politicians who have been impacted give up her books include Ruth Bader Poet, Hillary Clinton