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Louisa May Alcott (; November 29, 1832 – March 6, 1888) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet best known for writing the novel Little Women (1868) and its sequels Good Wives (1869), Little Men (1871) and Jo's Boys (1886). Raised in New England by her transcendentalist parents, Abigail May and Amos Bronson Alcott, she grew up among many well-known intellectuals of the day, including Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Alcott's family suffered from financial difficulties, and while she worked to help support the family from an early age, she also sought an outlet in writing. She began to receive critical success for her writing in the 1860s. Early in her career, she sometimes used pen names such as A. M. Barnard, under which she wrote lurid short stories and sensation novels for adults that focused on passion and revenge. Published in 1868, Little Women is set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts, and is loosely based on Alcott's childhood experiences with her three sisters, Abigail May Alcott Nieriker, Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, and Anna Alcott Pratt. The novel was well-received at the time and is still popular today among both children and adults. It has been adapted for stage plays, films, and television many times. Alcott was an abolitionist and a feminist and remained unmarried throughout her life. She also spent her life active in reform movements such as temperance and women's suffrage. She died from a stroke in Boston on March 6, 1888, just two days after her father's death. Early life Louisa May Alcott was born on November 29, 1832, in Germantown, which is now part of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on her father's 33rd birthday. Her parents were transcendentalist and educator Amos Bronson Alcott and social worker Abigail "Abby" May. She was the second of four daughters: Anna Bronson Alcott was the eldest, while Elizabeth Sewall Alcott and Abigail May Alcott were the two youngest. As a child, she was a tomboy who preferred boys' games. The family moved to Boston in 1834, where Alcott's father established the experimental Temple School and joined the Transcendental Club with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Bronson Alcott's opinions on education, tough views on child-rearing, and moments of mental instability shaped young Alcott's mind with a desire to achieve perfection, a goal of the transcendentalists. His attitudes towards Alcott's wild and independent behavior and his inability to provide for his family created conflict between Bronson Alcott, his wife, and their daughters. Abigail reportedly resented her husband's inability to recognize her sacrifices and related his thoughtlessness to the larger issue of the inequality of sexes. She passed this recognition and desire to redress wrongs done to women on to Louisa. In 1840, after several setbacks with Temple School, the Alcott family moved to a cottage on 2 acres (0.81 ha) of land, situated along the Sudbury River in Concord, Massachusetts. The three years they spent at the rented Hosmer Cottage were described as idyllic. By 1843, the Alcott family moved, along with six other members of the Consociate Family, to the Utopian Fruitlands community for a brief interval in 1843–1844. After the collapse of the Utopian Fruitlands, they rented rooms and finally, with Abigail May Alcott's inheritance and financial help from Emerson, they purchased a homestead in Concord. They moved into the home they named "Hillside" on April 1, 1845, but had moved on by 1852, when it was sold to Nathaniel Hawthorne, who renamed it The Wayside. Moving 21 times in 30 years, the Alcotts returned to Concord once again in 1857 and moved into Orchard House, a two-story clapboard farmhouse, in the spring of 1858. Alcott's early education included lessons from the naturalist Henry David Thoreau who inspired her to write the poem Thoreau's Flute based on her time at Walden Pond. She was primarily educated by her father, who was strict and believed in "the sweetness of self-denial." She also received some instruction from writers and educators such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller, and Julia Ward Howe, all of whom were family friends. She later described these early years in a newspaper sketch entitled "Transcendental Wild Oats." The sketch was reprinted in the volume Silver Pitchers (1876), which relates the family's experiment in "plain living and high thinking" at Fruitlands. She was also instructed by Sophia Foord, who lived with the family for a time, and whom she would later eulogize. Poverty made it necessary for Alcott to go to work at an early age as a teacher, seamstress, governess, domestic helper, and writer. Her sisters also supported the family, working as seamstresses, while their mother took on social work among the Irish immigrants. Only the youngest, Abigail, was able to attend public school. Due to all of these pressures, writing became a creative and emotional outlet for Alcott. Her first book was Flower Fables (1849), a selection of tales originally written for Ellen Emerson, daughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Alcott is quoted as saying "I wish I was rich, I was good, and we were all a happy family this day" and was driven in life not to be poor. In 1847, Alcott and her family served as station masters on the Underground Railroad, when they housed a fugitive slave for one week and had discussions with Frederick Douglass. Alcott read and admired the Declaration of Sentiments published by the Seneca Falls Convention on women's rights, advocating for women's suffrage and became the first woman to register to vote in Concord, Massachusetts in a school board election. The 1850s were hard times for the Alcotts, and in 1854 Louisa found solace at The Boston Theatre where she wrote The Rival Prima Donnas, which she later burned due to a quarrel between the actresses over who would play what role. At one point in 1857, unable to find work and filled with despair, Alcott contemplated suicide. During that year, she read The Life of Charlotte Brontë by Elizabeth Gaskell and found many parallels between Charlotte Brontë's life and her own. In 1858, her younger sister Elizabeth died and her older sister Anna married a man named John Pratt. Alcott considered these events catalysts to breaking up their sisterhood. Life in Dedham Alcott's mother, Abba, ran an "intelligence office" to help the destitute find employment. When James Richardson came to Abba in the winter of 1851 seeking a companion for his frail sister who could also help out with some light housekeeping, Alcott volunteered to serve in the house filled with books, music, artwork, and good company on Highland Avenue. Alcott may have imagined the experience as something akin to being a heroine in a Gothic novel as Richardson described their home in a letter as stately but decrepit. Richardson's sister, Elizab.... Discover the M E May popular books. Find the top 100 most popular M E May books.
Best Seller M E May Books of 2024
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Purged
M. E. MayIndianapolis Homicide Detective, Chennelle Kendall, faces the greatest challenge of her career when an avenging angel decides to force members of a Wiccan coven to confess their si...
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Imperial Stout
Layla ReyneLayla Reyne spins off from her pulsepounding Agents Irish and Whiskey books with Imperial Stout, the first installment in the Trouble Brewing seriesIt’s a good thing assistant US a...
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The Little Dragon
Betty NeelsSHE SWORE SHE WOULD NEVER MARRY A RICH MAN!As a private nurse to the wealthy, Constantia had seen the misery that too much money could bring. Jeroen van der Giessen, though, was on...
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Harlequin Presents - May 2019 - Box Set 2 of 2
Michelle Smart, Melanie Milburne, Natalie Anderson & Cathy WilliamsHarlequin® Presents brings you a collection of four new titles! This Presents box set includes:A CINDERELLA TO SECURE HIS HEIRCinderella SeductionsBy Michelle Smart To secure his h...
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Modern Questions of Celestial Mechanics
Giovanni ColomboC. Agostinelli: Sul problema delle aurore boreali e il moto di un corpuscolo elettrizzato in presenza di un dipolo magnetico. G. Colombo: Introduction to the theory of earth’s moti...
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Ensconced
M. E. MayMissing Persons Detective and loving family man, Tyrone Mayhew, faces one of the toughest cases of his career. As a rookie in the department ten years ago, Tyrone had investigated ...
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THE RELENTLESS CITY
E. F. Benson"The Relentless City" is one of the first novels of E.F. Benson. Published in 1903, between the first success of the Dodo and the famous Mapp and Lucia series, it can be co...
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Summer
Edith WhartonA story of forbidden sexual passion and thwarted dreams set against the backdrop of a lush summer in rural MassachusettsSeventeenyearold Charity Royall is desperate to escape life...
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Unscrupulous
M. E. MayChristmas is only a week away, but not all is merry and bright for Sergeant Brent Freeman and his partner, newly promoted Detective Anne Samuels. They find themselves facing more t...
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All I Love and Know
Judith FrankTold with the storytelling power and emotional fidelity of Wally Lamb, this is a searing drama of a modern American family on the brink of dissolution, one that explores adoption, ...
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I Heard Him Exclaim
Z.A. MaxfieldWho Likes a Skinny Santa?Steve Adams's heart hasn't been in the Christmas spirit ever since doctors put a stent in it and ordered him to clean up his act. No longer filling out his...
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Harlequin Historical May 2016 - Box Set 1 of 2
Annie Burrows, Ann Lethbridge & Virginia HeathHarlequin® Historical brings you three new REGENCY titles, available now! This box set includes:IN BED WITH THE DUKE (Regency) by Annie BurrowsWhen Gregory, Duke of Halstead, wakes...
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The Iliad
Homer & Caroline AlexanderWith her virtuoso translation, classicist and bestselling author Caroline Alexander brings to life Homer’s timeless epic of the Trojan WarComposed around 730 B.C., Homer’s Iliad re...
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A Pocket Full of Rye
Agatha ChristieIn Agatha Christie’s classic, A Pocket Full of Rye, the bizarre death of a financial tycoon has Miss Marple investigating a very odd case of crime by rhyme.Rex Fortescue, king of a...
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Equazioni differenziali astratte
Luigi AmerioT. Kato: Semigroups and temporally inhomogeneous evolution equations. J.L. Lions: Equations différentielles opérationnelles dans les espaces de Hilbert. L. Nirenberg: Equazioni dif...
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Lord of Secrets
Alyssa EverettSomewhere on the North Atlantic, 1820Rosalie Whitwell has spent most of her life sailing the globe with her adventurous father, dreaming of the day she can settle in one place long...
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Inconspicuous
M. E. MayHomicide Detective, Erica Barnes, leads the investigation into the most brutal serial murders in Indianapolis history. Once the FBI is alerted, Erica finds there are a string...
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Stochastic Differential Equations
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All My Lies
Sophie Flynn'Perfectly paced, suspenseful and gripping a real pageturner' SOPHIE HANNAH, author of Haven't They Grown 'A rollercoaster ride with a cast of flawed characters an exce...