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Do you love Little Women? Then meet its author in her own words. This life of Louisa May Alcott, put together by her friend Ednah D. Cheney soon after her death, is built from Alcott's own letters and journals. You will see her poor and hopeful childhood, her nursing in wartime, her years of writing to feed her family, and then her sudden fame. It follows her whole life, right to her death in March 1888.
Ednah D. Cheney knew Louisa May Alcott and her family, and a year after Alcott's death she published this memoir, in 1889. Her method is stated plainly at the start: she gives copious extracts from Alcott's own letters and journals, woven into her own narrative. So the voice you hear most is Alcott's own, funny, driven, self mocking, and fiercely devoted to her family.
The twelve chapters run from her parentage and childhood, through the family's idealistic Fruitlands experiment and her sentimental period, into authorship. You follow her nursing service in the Civil War, the success of Hospital Sketches, the writing of Little Women and its astonishing fame, her European travels, and the family losses that shadowed her last years. Chapter seven, on Hospital Sketches, pairs beautifully with that little book itself.
The memoir is complete. Its eleventh chapter narrates her death on 6 March 1888, the same day her father was buried, and includes her last letters. A short conclusion closes the volume with Emerson's poem Terminus. For anyone who loves Little Women, this is the truest doorway into the life behind it.
Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters, and Journals, edited by Ednah D. Cheney and published in 1889, tells Alcott's life largely in her own words. Cheney weaves her narrative around long extracts from Alcott's letters and journals, from a Transcendentalist childhood and the Fruitlands experiment through nursing, hard years of writing, and the fame of Little Women. The memoir is complete, running to Alcott's death on 6 March 1888, with her last letters included.
The volume opens with tenderness: a dedication to Anna B. Pratt, Alcott's sole surviving sister and her never failing help from birth to death, signed by Ednah D. Cheney at Jamaica Plain in June 1889, and then Cheney's Introduction, in which she explains her method. She will give copious extracts from Alcott's letters and journals, woven into a narrative of her own, so that Alcott tells her life, as far as possible, in her own words. Twelve chapters then carry the whole arc, and the memoir is complete. You begin with genealogy and parentage, Bronson Alcott's Transcendentalist circle and Marmee's patience, pass through childhood and the communal experiment at Fruitlands, and reach the sentimental period and her apprenticeship as an author, writing sensation stories and working as a seamstress, teacher, and servant to keep the family afloat. The year of good luck, the Hospital Sketches chapter, and the Europe and Little Women chapter bring the war nursing, the first fame, and the book that changed everything. Europe and Family Changes, the two longest chapters, are each split into two parts here. Last Years, split at its own headed division, Last Letters, narrates her death on 6 March 1888. A short Conclusion closes with Emerson's poem Terminus.
Edition: Edited by Ednah D. Cheney (1889). Text: Project Gutenberg ebook 38049.
The first chapter
TO LOUISA MAY ALCOTT.
BY HER FATHER.
When I remember with what buoyant heart, Midst war's alarms and woes of civil strife, In youthful eagerness thou didst depart, At peril of thy safety, peace, and life, To nurse the wounded soldier, swathe the dead,-- How piercèd soon by fever's poisoned dart, And brought unconscious home, with wildered head, Thou ever since 'mid langour and dull pain, To conquer fortune, cherish kindred dear, Hast with grave studies vexed a sprightly brain, In myriad households kindled love and cheer, Ne'er from thyself by Fame's loud trump beguiled, Sounding in this and the farther hemisphere,-- I press thee to my heart as Duty's faithful child.
Louisa Alcott was the second child of Amos Bronson and Abba May Alcott. This name was spelled Alcocke in English history. About 1616 a coat-of-arms was granted to Thomas Alcocke of Silbertoft, in the county of Leicester. The device represents three cocks, emblematic of watchfulness; and the motto is Semper Vigilans.
The first of the name appearing in English history is John Alcocke of Beverley, Yorkshire, of whom Fuller gives an account in his Worthies of England.
Thomas and George Alcocke were the first of the name among the settlers in New England. The name is frequently found in the records of Dorchester and Roxbury, and has passed through successive changes to its present form.
The name of Bronson came from Mr. Alcott's maternal grandfather, the sturdy Capt. Amos Bronson of Plymouth, Conn. "His ancestors on both sides had been substantial people of respectable position in England, and were connected with the founders and governors of the chief New England colonies. At the time of Mr. Alcott's birth they had become simple farmers, reaping a scanty living from their small farms in Connecticut."
Amos Bronson Alcott, the father of Louisa, was born Nov. 29, 1799, at the foot of Spindle Hill, in the region called New Connecticut. He has himself given in simple verse the story of his quaint rustic life in his boyhood, and Louisa has reproduced it in her story of "Eli's Education" (in the Spinning-Wheel Stories), which gives a very true account of his youthful life and adventures. He derived his refined, gentle nature from his mother, who had faith in her son, and who lived to see him the accomplished scholar he had vowed to become in his boyhood. Although brought up in these rustic surroundings, his manners were always those of a true gentleman. The name of the little mountain town afterward became Wolcott, and Louisa records in her journal a pilgrimage made thither in after years.
Louisa Alcott's mother was a daughter of Col. Joseph May of Boston. This family is so well known that it is hardly necessary to repeat its genealogy here. She was a sister of Samuel J. May, for many years pastor of the Unitarian church at Syracuse, who was so tenderly beloved by men of all religious persuasions in his home, and so widely known and respected for his courage and zeal in the Antislavery cause, as well as for his many philanthropic labors.
Mrs. Alcott's mother was Dorothy Sewall, a descendant of that family already distinguished in the annals of the Massachusetts colony, and which has lost nothing of its reputation for ability and virtue in its latest representatives.
Mrs. Alcott inherited in large measure the traits which distinguished her family. She was a woman of large stature, fine physique, and overflowing life. Her temper was as quick and warm as her affections, but she was full of broad unselfish generosity. Her untiring energies were constantly employed, not only for the benefit of her family, but for all around her. She had a fine mind, and if she did not have large opportunities for scholastic instruction, she always enjoyed the benefit of intellectual society and converse with noble minds. She loved expression in writing, and her letters are full of wit and humor, keen criticism, and noble moral sentiments. Marriage with an idealist, who had no means of support, brought her many trials and privations. She bore them heroically, never wavering in affection for her husband or in devotion to her children. If the quick, impatient temper sometimes relieved itself in hasty speech, the action was always large and unselfish.
It will be apparent from Louisa's life that she inherited the traits of both her parents, and that the uncommon powers of mind and heart that distinguished her were not accidental, but the accumulated result of the lives of generations of strong and noble men and women.
She was well born.
Mr. Alcott to Colonel May.
GERMANTOWN, Nov. 29, 1832.
DEAR SIR,--It is with great pleasure that I announce to you the birth of a second daughter. She was born at half-past 12 this morning, on my birthday (33), and is a very fine healthful child, much more so than Anna was at birth,--has a fine foundation for health and energy of character. Abba is very comfortable, and will soon be restored to the discharge of those domestic and maternal duties in which she takes so much delight, and in the performance of which she furnishes so excellent a model for imitation. Those only who have seen her in those relations, much as there is in her general character to admire and esteem, can form a true estimate of her personal worth and uncommon devotion of heart. She was formed for domestic sentiment rather than the gaze and heartlessness of what is falsely called "society." Abba inclines to call the babe Louisa May,--a name to her full of every association connected with amiable benevolence and exalted worth. I hope its present possessor may rise to equal attainment, and deserve a place in the estimation of society.
With Abba's and Anna's and Louisa's regards, allow me to assure you of the sincerity with which I am
Yours, A. BRONSON ALCOTT.
The children who lived to maturity were--
ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT, LOUISA MAY ALCOTT, ELIZABETH SEWALL ALCOTT, ABBA MAY ALCOTT.
Source: Project Gutenberg. Published 1889. Alcott died 1888. Public domain worldwide. Share this book: WhatsApp
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