Summary (from the publisher): Louisa May Alcott portrays a writer as worthy of interest in her own right as her most famous character, Jo March, and addresses all aspects of Alcott’s life: the effect of her father’s self-indulgent utopian schemes; her family’s chronic economic difficulties and frequent uprootings; her experience as a nurse in the Civil War; the loss of her health and frequent recourse to opiates in search of relief from migraines, insomnia, and symptomatic pain. Stories and details culled from Alcott’s journals; her equally rich letters to family, friends, publishers, and admiring readers; and the correspondence, journals, and recollections of her family, friends, and famous contemporaries provide the basis for this lively account of the author’s classic rags-to-riches tale.
Alcott would become the equivalent of a multimillionaire in her lifetime based on the astounding sales of her books, leaving contemporaries like Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Henry James in the dust. This biography explores Alcott’s life in the context of her works, all of which are to some extent autobiographical. A fresh, modern take on this remarkable and prolific writer, who secretly authored pulp fiction, harbored radical abolitionist views, and completed heroic service as a Civil War nurse, Louisa May Alcott is in the end also the story of how the all-time beloved American classic Little Women came to be. This revelatory portrait will present the popular author as she was and as she has never been seen before.
Review: This biography tells the story of the woman behind the best selling books, author Louisa May Alcott. Just as fascinating and headstrong as her most beloved and famous character Jo March, Louisa was raised in a family with four daughters. Her father was a well-known transcendentalist who was plagued by economic struggles. Louisa, who never married, devoted most of her life to supporting her family through her writing. Her experience as a nurse in the Civil War had a lasting impact on her writing and her health. After decades of debt and forced to continually accept the scraps of assistance from wealthier relatives and friends, Louisa became the equivalent of a multimillionaire thanks to her book sales. This biography provides a detail insight in her life, her writings, and the convergences between the two.
This was a well-researched, thoughtful biography of a fascinating woman. Reisen did a particularly good job of intertwining Louisa's writing career with her biography and examining the autobiographical aspects of her writing career. The author also did an excellent job of illustrating just how famous and wealthy Louisa became later in life - as well as highlighting the famous characters her father and the whole family interacted with on a regular basis including Hawthorne, Thoreau, and many other famous writers of the day.
Anyone who has ever read anything by Louisa May Alcott would likely enjoy learning more about the strong-willed, independent woman behind the famous books. Louisa was a master at repurposing her own experiences for her fiction: "Louisa went through her scrap bag of feelings, observations, and experiences, then selected and reorganized them to make stories" (180).
Stars: 4
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