However, Niles would only publish her father's philosophy book if Alcott would write a book, too. Originally, Alcott wasn't interested in the idea. Bernard when her publisher, Thomas Niles, suggested she write a book for girls. According to the Los Angeles Times, the 'blood and thunder' stories were characterized by 'hashish, transvestitism, sadomasochism, violence and feminism.' This darker side to Alcott's literary career was only discovered in 1942, when scholar Leona Rostenberg unearthed letters from a Harvard library with mention of the name.ДЄlcott had a busy career as A.M. In 1854, when she was 22, Alcott published a collection of fairy tales worthy of her real name.Д«efore writing Little Women, Alcott published racy (and lucrative) Gothic thrillers under the name A.M. Her first-ever published work, a poem, was published under the pseudonym Flora Fairfield. In 1863, Alcott published her recollections of those six weeks in a book for children called Hospital Sketches.ДЄlcott wrote racy fiction under a pen name.ДЄlcott couldn't resist a nom de plume. Alcott died of a stroke at the young age of 55. Though she recovered, she was weakened permanently. Two months after arriving, in January 1862, Alcott came down with typhoid pneumonia and was treated with calomel, a poisonous mercury. The tireless 12-hour shifts, the terrifying sights, and the difficult living conditions proved to be an insurmountable combination.

'As I can't fight, I will content myself with working with those who can,' she wrote to her friend, Alf Whitman (an inspiration for Laurie), per Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women.Д«ut Alcott only lasted at the hospital for six weeks. In 1861, Alcott volunteered to be a nurse at a Union hospital in Washington, D.C. As a teenager, Alcott picked books from the shelves of Ralph Waldo Emerson's gigantic library. The Alcott sisters' childhood teacher was 23-year-old Henry David Thoreau, who taught them lessons in the woods near Walden Pond or on his boat, the Musketaquid. Alcott's father, Amos Bronson Alcott, was a thinker, poet, educator, philosopher, and member of the Transcendentalist inner circle. Louisa May Alcott grew up among the country's most renowned thinkers.ДЇor a girl with literary ambitions, the Alcott house was the ideal cocoon. With Greta Gerwig's latest (and definitive) adaptation of Little Womenpremiering December 25, we're looking back on the fascinating life of its creator, a woman ahead of her time.

The March sisters, proxies for the Alcotts, grapple with the transition from girlhood to adulthood, and the dreams lost along the way.

Alcott based the 600-page novel on her experiences growing up with three sisters in Concord, MA. Little Women, Alcott's beloved and bestselling novel, is intrinsically wrapped up with those childhood dreams.

Instead, she had a flourishing and successful career as an authorвЂ“just as she had envisioned as a girl. Bucking the norm, Alcott never married or had children. In fact, her vivid imagination is what allowed her to surmount the expectations of life for a woman in the conservative Victorian era. Meryl Streep Ordered Wendy's on Little Women SetД«orn in 1832 to a principled and intellectual New England family, Alcott never let go of her childhood ambitions.

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