Essay, Biography or Paragraph on “Louisa May Alcott” great author complete biography for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

Louisa May Alcott

(1832 – 1888)

Louisa is primarily remembered for her children’s classics, especially for Little Women and its sequels. Contemporary research has revealed that Louisa Alcott wrote works aimed at adult audiences also, though under a pseudonym. She was also active as a nurse and a suffragette. She was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania on November 29, 1832. In 1840 the family moved to Con-cord. Louisa enjoyed acting out plays with her sisters, which she had written, and also spent time with family friends Thoreau and Emerson. Feeling more and more responsible for her family’s financial needs Louisa started taking on a variety of jobs. She and her elder sister Anna taught small children and mended and washed laundry in an effort to help provide for the growing Alcott family.

In 1852 Louisa published her first poem Sunlight in Peterson’s magazine under the pseudonym, Flora Fairfield. Her first published short story was The Rival Painters. Her fit-St book, Flower Fables was published in 1855. At this point, the Alcott family moved to Walpole, New Hampshire but Louisa stayed on in Boston to further her literary career. Louisa returned to Concord in 1857 to keep her mother company. She went to Washington, D.C. in 1862 to serve as a Civil War Nurse. Her stay in Washington prompted Louisa to write Hospital Sketches, which was published in 1863 followed by Moods in 1864. At this point Louisa’s publisher, Thomas Niles, told her that he wanted ‘a girls story’ from her. This was the turning point in Louisa’s literary career. She wrote furiously for two and a half months and produced Little Women based on her own experiences of growing up as a young woman with three other sisters. The novel, published on September 30, 1868, was an instant success and sold more than 2,000 copies immediately. Good Wives, the second volume of Little Women was re-leased on April 14, 1869 and more than 13,000 copies were sold at once. Alcott’s story of Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy had launched her into stardom and helped to alleviate the family’s financial problems. An Old Fashioned Girl was published in 1870, Little Men in 1871, followed by Work in 1873, Eight Cousins in 1874, and its sequel Rose in Bloom in 1876.

Though she continued to produce books for younger readers, Louisa also wrote adult thrillers and novellas like A Woman’s Power, A Modern Mephistopheles etc. Louisa published Jo’s Boys in 1886. Her father’s health finally failed and he died on March 4, 1888. Two days later, at the age of 56, Louisa May Alcott died in Boston, leaving a behind a legacy of several books which would be admired and cherished for generations to come.