Louisa May Alcott, born on November 29, 1832, was an American novelist and poet renowned as the author of the 1868 novel ‘Little Women‘. She was the daughter of ‘Amos Bronson Alcott‘, who was an American educator, transcendentalist thinker and writer.
Louisa was educated by her father and she was influenced by other pioneer transcendentalist thinkers like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau while growing up. Bronson Alcott’s methods in education though revolutionary for his day, were impractical and led to failures in many of his projects with the family suffering severe financial difficulties.
Louisa started writing to support her family from an early age. She was also a champion of the anti-slavery movement and wrote many papers related to the abolition of slavery. During the American Civil War, Louisa volunteered as a nurse and her experiences from that time period are narrated in ‘Hospital Sketches‘, which was published in 1863. She wrote her first novel, which was ‘Moods‘ in 1864, four years before she wrote ‘Little Women’.
Originally published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869, ‘Little Women‘ is a novel, which is loosely based on the life of the author and her three sisters. The novel follows the lives of four sisters on a journey out of adolescence and explores the difficulties associated with gender roles in a Post-Civil War America.
The novel was an immediate success – both from the commercial and critical viewpoints – and is still very popular among readers.
The warm-hearted narrative, which emphasizes on morality, along with the characters of the girls and their relationships are still appealing from a reader’s perspective. ‘Little Women‘ was followed by its sequels ‘Little Men‘ in 1871 and “Jo’s Boys” in 1886.
Alcott, who suffered chronic health problems in her later years, died of a stroke on March 6, 1888 in Boston, two days after her father’s death.
The illustrations in early editions of ‘Little Women’
The first edition of ‘Little Women‘, which was published by ‘Roberts Brothers‘ in 1868 had illustrations done by the American artist ‘Abigail May Alcott Nieriker‘. She was the youngest sister of Louisa May Alcott.
The 1915 ‘Little, Brown and Company‘ edition of ‘Little Women’ was enriched with color illustrations done by Jessie Willcox Smith, one of the most famous female illustrators in the US during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in 1863 in Philadelphia, Jessie Willcox Smith was a prolific contributor to a range of well-known magazines and periodicals of the time like Good Housekeeping, Scribner’s and Collier’s.
Jessie Willcox Smith was definitely influenced by French impressionist painters in her choice of colors and was equally proficient in working with a whole range of media like oil, watercolor, charcoal and pastels.
