Born November 29, 1832
Germantown, Pennsylvania

Died March 6, 1888
Roxbury, Massachusetts

Writer and editor

Louisa May Alcott. The Granger Collection, New York. Reproduced by permission.

"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."

Louisa May Alcott is most famous as the author of Little Women (1868) and the seven novels that followed in the "Little Women" series. The novels are realistic and entertaining accounts of the March family, and show children developing as independent and thoughtful individuals, facing and learning from conflicts, and sharing a warm and loving family life. Alcott enjoyed widespread popularity in her lifetime as a children's author. Meanwhile, she was secretly successful as a magazine writer of sensational fiction about crime, revenge, and romance. Alcott was not revealed...