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Louisa May Alcott is considered by many to be one of the greatest female writers of the 19th century. You've probably heard of her most famous book, Little Women, but this was just one of the 270 works she published.
Little Women is a semi-autobiographical tale that remains as meaningful today as when the book was first written in the mid-1800s. It is based on Alcott's own family, an unusual and poor group who lived in Concord, Massachusetts, in the mid-19th century. Alcott's mother, Abigail May, came from an upper class Boston family with a history of involvement in the anti-slavery movement. Alcott's father, Bronson Alcott, was part of the transcendentalist movement of the 1830s. Her parents' influence is clear throughout her works.
The second of four daughters, Louisa May Alcott began writing to add to the family income. In 1867, she became editor of a children's magazine, Merry's Museum. Her publisher urged her to write Little Women. She completed the entire novel in twelve weeks.
Little Women is the story of the four March girls, Beth, Jo, Amy and Meg, who live with their mother, Marmee, while their father is away fighting in the Civil War. Jo is a headstrong, tomboyish writer, who loosely represents Alcott herself. Beth is a shy artist, who, while nurturing, gives up hope too easily. Meg wants to be wealthy and demands good manners. Amy is selfish, materialistic, and vain.
Later in her career, Alcott wrote about women who moved out of their roles as mothers and housekeepers to become doctors, writers, or charity workers. In her final novel, Jo's Boys (1886), Alcott made arguments for women's rights and other reforms. She said, "I can remember when anti-slavery was in just the same state that suffrage is now, and take more pride in the very small help we Alcotts could give than in all the books I ever wrote..."
Few books have remained in print for more than 130 years. But while Alcott may be remembered for Little Women, she is also remembered for the trails she blazed for women all over the world.
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