HAPPY BIRTHDAY – Louisa May Alcott, born 29 November 1832
“I want to do something splendid.”
Louisa May Alcott at age 20
Some of my favourite girlhood reading was the Little Women series of novels. I wept over Beth’s death, longed to write stories like Jo, and got cross when handsome, charming Laurie was married to Amy instead of to Jo, who got a middle-aged professor for a husband instead. Do girls read Little Women today, or does it seem too old-fashioned and religious for them? I hope they still pick it up and do not simply experience it through film versions. It’s a wonderful story and its heroines learn lessons that are still very relevant to modern life.
A few years ago I finally managed to visit Concord and see Orchard House, the Alcott’s home. It was just so moving to see the simple desk that her father built for Louisa and on which she wrote her famous book. When I saw Beth’s piano, I wept! Then I visited the Alcott graves in Concord’s Sleepy Hollow cemetery and I wept all over again.
I think Louisa was a vital, intelligent and frustrated woman who did not really wish to be remembered for her story about girls growing up in New England during the Civil War. She also wrote Gothic horror stories and a book about her experiences as a Civil War nurse.
Louisa May Alcott died on 6 March 1888 aged 55.
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Susannah Fullerton: Film Adaptations
Susannah Fullerton: More about Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Little Women 1933 version starring Katharine Hepburn DVD
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