Louisa May Alcott is remembered as a famous author of many classics. She didn't only affect the literature sphere, but she was also active in healthcare. Today, her writing is cherished by dedicated fans and admiring students throughout the world.
Louisa was born November 29, 1832 at a hospital in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Like her Little Women classics, she had three sisters. She grew up in a Transcendentalist home that gave life to her intellectual thinking. It was the perfect environment for an aspiring writer. Her perspectives challenged the views of her house's philosophies. Most of her education came from her father. There was a small school held in her family's barn that she attended. Her inspiration to write was affected by her relatives, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau(two famous writers of her day.)
In 1852, she published her first poem, "Sunlight." A couple of years later she published her first book, Flower Fables.
Herman Melville, American author. Reproduction of ...
Henry David Thoreau
Alcott-LLouisa was desperately trying to start her literary career, but her sister, Lizzie, came down with scarlet fever. She went to Concord to take care of her sister, but her efforts failed when Lizzie died in 1856. A year later, Louisa got married and moved into her mother's house to keep her mother company. During that time, the United States was in need of nurses for the Civil War. In 1862 she went to help injured soldiers, but caught typhoid fever. As a result of the sickness, she would suffer mercury poisoning for the rest of her life. This experience prompted her to write Hospital Sketches in 1863.
When her publisher encouraged her to write a different kind of story, perhaps from another point of view. She did in 1868, Louisa published one of the most famous self reflective novel ever written, Little Women.