Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women
by Harriet Reisen, Henry Holt and Company
The woman behind was ahead of her time, independent and forward-thinking. Little Women Biographer Harriet Reisen, whose self-professed obsession with Louisa May Alcott started with her own cherished copy of the novelist’s best-known work, drives home the point that while Louisa is remembered as a feminist and abolitionist, she was actually motivated by money. Alcott vowed at 15 that she would be “rich, famous and happy” before she died; hard work brought success in her quest.
The daughter of Amos Bronson Alcott—a co-founder of the Transcendental Club with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau— and women’s suffragist and abolitionist Abigail May, Louisa was largely educated by her father. When the family fell on hard times, Louisa went to work. She took a series of low-paying odd jobs, also serving as a nurse in Washington, D.C., during the Civil War, as well as pursuing a writing career. Her first book was published when she was only 22.
When war came, Alcott had already achieved a measure of literary success, writing for Atlantic Monthly. But nothing had prepared her for the conflict’s horrors, though the violence and suffering she witnessed confirmed her abolitionist ideals and softened her view of men. She contracted typhoid only six weeks after starting as a nurse, but her experiences richly informed what would, in 1863, become her first bestseller, Hospital Sketches.
Harriet Reisen focuses on the parallels between the semi-autobiographical Little Women, which was published in 1868, and Alcott’s own remarkable life, leaving her lesser-known works barely touched. At some points, the biographer’s zeal to explain and expound on Alcott’s transcendentalist views overwhelms her narrative, but on the whole, this is a sympathetic portrait that will surely appeal to most Alcott fans.
Originally published in the June 2010 issue of Civil War Times. To subscribe, click here.
