Born on 29 November 1832 in Germantown (now part of Philadelphia), Pennsylvania, Louisa May Alcott was the second daughter of Abigail `Abba’ May (1800-1877), women’s suffrage and abolitionist advocate and Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1893), transcendentalist philosopher and education and social reformer who helped found the controversial and pioneering Temple School in Boston, Massachusetts in 1834. Amos played an active role in the education of Louisa and her three sisters AnnBy 1858 the Alcotts were living at The Orchard House on Lexington Road in Concord, which is now a National Historic Landmark. Surrounded by acres of apple trees, the rambling and dignified home would be the setting for her future novel Little Women. Its sequels are Good Wives (1869), Little Men (1871), and Jo’s Boys (1886). Elizabeth, and May.In 1856 Elizabeth Alcott died of scarlet fever, and Anna married. Louisa and her mother were a great support to each other in this time of loss and change. She was writing for the Atlantic Monthly when the Civil War broke out and she enlisted as a nurse and went to the Union Hospital in Washington, D.C. in 1862. Hospital Sketches (1863) is a result of her letters home and was critical to her success as an author. She had contracted typhoid fever during her service and the treatment for it which included mercury would hamper her health for the rest of her life.;xNLx;;xNLx;Alcott became involved with the same reform movements her mother was active in including abolition of slavery and women’s rights. She was also an accomplished writer now achieving wide acclaim and supporting the family financially. Works to follow Sketches were The Rose Family: A Fairy Tale (1864), Moods (1865), and the potboiler A Long Fatal Love Chase (1866). Her publisher Thomas Niles requested `a girl’s story’ from her and the result was Little Women, followed by further development of the March sisters’ lives in Good Wives (1869). An Old-fashioned Girl (1870) was one of her next publications followed by Little Men (1871), Eight Cousins (1875) and its sequel Rose in Bloom (1876). Other Alcott works include A Modern Mephistopheles (1877), Under the Lilacs (1879), and Jack and Jill (1880).;xNLx;;xNLx;Alcott’s mother Abigail had died in 1877 and in 1878 her sister May married and had a daughter named after her, Louisa `Lulu’ May. May died a year later. Shortly after Alcott moved to Boston where she continued to write novels including Jo’s Boys (1886), Lulu’s Library, written between 1886 and 1888 for her niece Lulu, and A Garland for Girls (1888).;xNLx;;xNLx;Amos Bronson Alcott died in 1888 and just two days later, on 6 March 1888 Louisa Alcott died in Boston, Massachusetts. She lies buried on Authors Ridge of the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord.;xNLx;
Fairy Song by Louisa May Alcott The moonlight fades from flower and rose And the stars dim one by one; The tale is told, the song is sung, And the Fairy feast is done. The night-wind rocks the sleeping flowers, And sings to them, soft and low. The early birds erelong will wake: 'T is time for the Elves to go. O'er the sleeping earth we silently pass, Unseen by mortal eye, And send sweet dreams, as we lightly float Through the quiet moonlit sky;-- For the stars' soft eyes alone may see, And the flowers alone may know, The feasts we hold, the tales we tell; So't is time for the Elves to go My Kingdom by Louisa May Alcott A little kingdom I possess where thoughts and feelings dwell, And very hard I find the task of governing it well; For passion tempts and troubles me, A wayward will misleads, And selfishness its shadow casts On all my words and deeds. How can I learn to rule myself, to be the child I should, Honest and brave, nor ever tire Of trying to be good? How can I keep a sunny soul To shine along life's way? How can I tune my little heart To sweetly sing all day? Lullaby by Louisa May Alcott Now the day is done, Now the shepherd sun Drives his white flocks from the sky; Now the flowers rest On their mother's breast, Hushed by her low lullaby. Now the glowworms glance, Now the fireflies dance, Under fern-boughs green and high; And the western breeze To the forest trees Chants a tuneful lullaby
• Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead. • Love is the only thing that we can carry with us when we go, and it makes the end so easy. • Help one another is part of the religion of our sisterhood. • Many argue; not many converse. • Resolve to take fate by the throat and shake a living out of her. • I believe that it is as much a right and duty for women to do something with their lives as for men and we are not going to be satisfied with such frivolous parts as you give us. • "Stay" is a charming word in a friend's vocabulary. • I asked for bread, and I got a stone in the shape of a pedestal. • Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents. • It takes people a long time to learn the difference between talent and genius, especially ambitious young men and women. • I put in my list all the busy, useful independent spinsters I know, for liberty is a better husband than love to many of us. • Housekeeping ain't no joke!
louisa may alcott was born on november twenty-ninth 1832
on 6 March 1888 Louisa Alcott died in Boston, Massachusetts. She lies buried on Authors Ridge of the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord.
By 1858 the Alcotts were living at The Orchard House on Lexington Road in Concord, which is now a National Historic Landmark. Surrounded by acres of apple trees, the rambling and dignified home would be the setting for her future novel Little Women.
Louisa May Alcott's father, Amos Bronson Alcott, was an important--though controversial--man in his times and in his community. He is perhaps best known for being a philosopher and an education reformer, but he was also a leader in the Transcendentalist movement as well as a teacher, school superintendent, and an author. He established both the Temple School, in Boston, and the Concord School of Philosophy. Although he was a loving father, he was not very responsible or practical, so Louisa's mother, Abigail May Alcott, filled the role of "head of household". Just like Jo, the protagonist in her Little Women, Louisa had three sisters--one older (Anna Bronson Alcott) and two younger (Elizabeth "Lizzie" Sewall Alcott and Abba May Alcott). And, much like Jo's sister Beth, Lizzie died at age 22 from complications of scarlet fever. But, unlike Jo, Louisa also had a little brother, who died as an infant.
Amos’ idealist and unconventional pursuits were not especially lucrative so around the age of fifteen Alcott started to contribute to the family income with various positions including teacher, seamstress, and servant which Louisa May Alcott was a versatile writer who started at an early age. At the encouragement of her father, she kept a diary as a child--which probably helped her to discover her love and talent for writing and surely provided ideas later for her various plots and characters. As a teenager, Louisa wrote several plays, poems, and short stories. She achieved publication for the first time at age nineteen, with a poem entitled "Sunlight" (1851), which she wrote under the pseudonym, "Flora Fairfield." The title of Ms. Alcott's first published short story was The Rival Painters: A Tale of Rome (1852), and her first published book was Flower Fables (1854), a collection of short fairy-tale stories and poems which she had originally created to entertain Ralph Waldo Emerson's daughter Ellen. Louisa May Alcott wrote her first novel, The Inheritance, at age seventeen, but it went unpublished for nearly 150 years until 1997, after two researchers (Joel Myerson and Daniel Shealy) stumbled across the handwritten manuscript in the Houghton Library at Harvard University. Of course, Ms. Alcott is best known for a different novel, Little Women, which she wrote in two parts. The first volume, alternately titled Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, was published in 1868, and the second volume, Good Wives, was published in 1869. Like Jo in Little Women, Louisa also wrote many "blood and thunder" tales, which were published in popular periodicals of the day. She did not openly claim authorship for many of these Gothic thriller stories, however: for some, she used the pseudonym, "A. M. Barnard"; for others, she chose to remain completely anonymous.inspired her later novel Work.
We'd love to hear from you. Please send questions or feedback to the below email addresses.
Before contacting us, you may wish to visit our FAQs page which has lots of useful info on Tiki-Toki.
We can be contacted by email at: hello@tiki-toki.com.
You can also follow us on twitter at twitter.com/tiki_toki.
If you are having any problems with Tiki-Toki, please contact us as at: help@tiki-toki.com
Close