Louisa May Alcott was born in 1832 and taught under her father – essentially she was a homeschooler along with her 3 sisters.  Her education was unconventional due to her father being a Transcendentalists.  Let me retract my previous statement.  She was probably “unschooled” then.  Louisa was often thought of as a tomboy, much like character “Jo” in this month’s novel.

Louisa began writing when she was young.  I imagine her and I would have gotten along quite well.  Already, we share the whole tomboy thing and I bet she and I could sit at a Farmer’s Market, making up all sorts of stories about people walking past us.

However, we become different when it comes to acting.  I do like the lime light, but not as a lurid villain.

Her family suffered a season of poverty which prompted her to seriously earn a living from her writing.  She did this quite successfully.  Although she is most popular for her children’s literature, Alcott explored the themes of self expression and women’s rights through her adult fiction works.

(She kind of looks like she has a headache. 

That or she is reading a book.)

But you will have to read those for yourself.  There is an idea for the book giveaway – search for one of Louisa’s adult fiction books.  (I won’t be giving one of you her works.  I already picked up my book at 1/2 Price books . . . it will make you laugh.  At least it did me.)

She wrote over 30 stories.  She followed her father to the grave two days after he died.

In closing,

You have a good many little gifts and virtues, but there is no need of parading them, for conceit spoils the finest genius. There is not much danger that real talent or goodness will be overlooked long, and the great charm of all power is modesty. 

or consider this loosely paraphrased quote regarding her father:

a philosopher was like a man up in a balloon: he was safe as long as three women held the ropes on the ground.

– Louisa May Alcott