Introduction

Louisa May Alcott (November 29, 1832-March 6, 1888) was the second daughter of  Bronson May and Abigail Alcott. She has a sister named Anna Alcott, The girls were mostly educated at home. "I never went to school," Louisa wrote, "except to my father or such governesses as from time to time came into the family. . . . so we had lessons each morning in the study. And very happy hours they were to us, for my father taught in the wise way which unfolds what lies in the child's nature as a flower blooms, rather than crammed it, like a Strasburg goose, with more than it could digest. I never liked arithmetic nor grammar . . . but reading, writing, composition, history, and geography I enjoyed, as well as the stories read to us with a skill peculiarly his own."
 Her first story, "The Rival Painters, A Tale of Rome" was written at the Hillside house in 1848 and published four years later in Olive Branch. By that time, the Alcotts were back in Boston, where they lived at five different addresses between 1849 and 1852. The two older girls contributed to the meager family income by teaching. Louisa's unhappy few weeks with a Dedham family were recorded in her essay, "How I Went Out to Service." Publisher James T. Fields rejected the piece and advised her: "Stick to your teaching, Miss Alcott. You can't write." Disheartened but determined, she continued to write, gradually learning how to produce what would sell. On her own in Boston she also took in sewing and served occasionally as governess. Living as frugally as possible, she sent home almost all the money she earned..
 She continued to produce her stream of children's books and wrote an adult novel, A Modern Mephistopheles, published in 1877. Spending considerable time in Boston, she sometimes shared her rooms at the Bellevue Hotel with her sister May and also provided her with art lessons. They went abroad together, and May was able to establish herself as an artist in London. She married Ernest Nieriker and settled with him in Paris but died a few weeks after the birth of a daughter named after Louisa. She left the baby to Alcott. In September, 1880, "Lulu" arrived in Boston and gave Alcott's life a new focus. She delighted to watch the child grow, told her stories and published them as Lulu's Library.
As Alcott's health continued to fail, she tried various doctors and "cures." When her father suffered a stroke in 1882, she established a home for him with Anna, her two sons and little Lulu at 10 Louisburg Square in Boston. She herself moved from place to place in search of health and peace to write, settling at last in a Roxbury nursing home. Although only in her mid-fifties, she realized that death might come at any time and legally adopted Anna's son John Pratt. She willed her copyrights in trust to him, stipulating that the income be shared by Anna, Lulu, John and Anna's other son Fred.
On March 1, 1888, Louisa visited her father for the last time."I am going up," he said. "Come with me." "Oh, I wish I could," she replied. Bronson Alcott died on March 4, and Louisa May Alcott on March 6. She was buried in Sleepy Hollow cemetery in Concord. Her grave bears a Civil War veteran's marker.