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Louisa May Alcott: A Personal Biography
Cheever, Susan
2010, 298 pages Nonfiction
Susan Cheever's story of Louisa May Alcott's life is more than just a biography because it is written from Alcott's point of view, as a reporter of her own life and of all the changes happening in the mid-19th century world around her. I came away from the book feeling that I really knew this woman.
Alcott grew up in a close-knit, unconventional family. Her father, Bronson Alcott, was revered by his wife and daughters and admired by others, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, for his ideas about education. Several attempts at running schools based on those principles failed and the family moved often. Concord, Mass., where Emerson was creating an intellectual community became the base to and from which the Alcotts moved over the years. In Emerson, the young Louisa May found a mentor; in Henry David Thoreau, a friend. These friends saved the Alcotts from homelessness on a few occasions.
One of the Alcott family practices was for everyone to keep a diary. These were often shared aloud with each other. Louisa drew praise for her writing and intellectual curiosity. Writing, storytelling and acting were her passions. This opened up an economic opportunity for the often destitute family. Louisa began to sell stories to magazines under the name A.M. Barnard. When the Alcott family could sustain itself, the women were the ones that kept them fed. Louisa May was independent and spirited but she was also, in her own words, “married” to her family, and she was too much the romantic, and rebel, to marry for money.
Alcott left home for brief periods and each trip influenced her point of view and her writing. She left to serve as a nurse during the Civil War, from which came the well-received “Hospital Sketches.” This work increased the demand for her writing and editing. Ironically, Alcott did not want to write “Little Women.” She did it out of family loyalty. Thomas Niles promised to publish her father's book, “Tablets,” if Louisa May would write a book for young girls. And so she did, achieving wealth and fame that most only dream of, all the while remaining loyal to her family.
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