Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters, and Journals

Truly one of the most remarkable women of the nineteenth century, Alcott spent part of her childhood in an experimental Utopian community, received lessons from Henry David Thoreau and Nathaniel Hawthorne, served as a volunteer nurse during the Civil War, and became one of America's most beloved writers by penning an impressive collection of children's tales, novels, and essays. In this 1889 work, Ednah D. Cheney takes an in-depth look at Alcott's life, piecing together her biography with excerpts from her journals and personal correspondence. Alcott's journal entries, in particular, showcase her wit and sharpness with gems like "Stories simmered in my brain, demanding to be writ; but I let them simmer, knowing that the longer the divine afflatus was bottled up the better it would be."