On November 29 we remember the author who gave us a book described as “the very best of books to reach the hearts of the young of any age from six to sixty”. Today, 146 years after Little Women was first published, it continues to charm and captivate as it first did.
Childhood
Louisa Alcott was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. She was the second of four daughters. Her father had strict views on education and bringing up children. This had a strong effect on Louisa and she strove for perfection.
Perhaps the most idyllic part of her childhood was when she and her family stayed in a cottage by the Sudbury in Concord, Massachusetts. The family went through trying times and Louisa was forced to take up jobs as teacher, seamstress, governess and domestic help. But through it all, she never stopped writing.
The Alcotts loved to travel. Louisa’s first trip to Europe was as a lady’s companion to the daughter of one of Boston’s richest merchants. By the time she travelled a second time in 1870, she was rich and famous. She wrote a travel book called Shawl-Straps. In it she asks readers to not go by guidebooks but be adventurous and travel by whatever means is on offer. For instance, she once travelled in a mail carriage in England!
Louisa began writing for a magazine called the Atlantic Monthly. Then the American Civil War broke out and she served as a nurse. The letters she wrote home at this time were later revised and published as Hospital Sketches.
Little Women was partly autobiographical. The March sisters Meg, Jo, Amy and Beth strongly resembled Alcott and her sisters. Jo was modelled on herself. The life the little women led in their cosy cottage was similar to the one the Alcotts had in their cottage in Concord. Though the character of Jo is based on herself, Jo gets married but Louisa never did.
The book and the serials are endearing in their simplicity and vivid description. Her writing brought to life the routine tasks of everyday living. She also tackled women’s issues in all her writings.
Louisa also wrote:
Little Men
Eight Cousins
Rose in Bloom
Jo's Boys
A Garland for Girls
Jack and Jill
Under the Lilac
Aunt Jo’s Scrap-Bag
Shawl Straps
Cupid and Chow-Chow
My Girls, Etc.,
Jimmy’s Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc.,
An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc.,
Morning–Glories and Other Stories
Orchard House
Today Louisa’s house is a visitor’s delight. Many have said, “A visit to Orchard House is like a walk through Little Women .”
Louisa’s father bought two houses that were built on 12 acres of land. He joined the houses and made several modifications to suit his family. The grounds also had 40 apple trees. So he named the house Orchard House. This is the house where Louisa was inspired to write her classic Little Women . She wrote it at a “shelf desk” her father had built for her.
Not much has changed in the house since the Alcotts lived there. The rooms and the furnishings by and large remain the same.
