About the Author

Louisa May Alcott (Author)
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT (1832-1888), a novelist and poet, is perhaps known as the author of the "Little Women" trilogy: Little Women, Little Men, and Jo's Boys. She was a committed abolitionist and feminist throughout her adult life.

Joel Myerson (Editor)
JOEL MYERSON is Carolina Distinguished Professor Emeritus of American Literature at the University of South Carolina.

Daniel Shealy (Editor)
DANIEL SHEALY is a professor of English at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. He is the editor of Alcott in Her Own Time and has also been involved in numerous publications related to Alcott's fiction, letters, and journals.

Reviews

Alcott's journals offer a literate, poignant, often humorous portrait of a singular woman.--Publishers Weekly

It's a credit to Louisa May Alcott's timeless storytelling abilities that her thoughts on woman suffrage, slavery, and even berry picking are nevertheless illuminating.--New York Times Book Review

The bubbling young woman who said she was 'born with a boy's spirit under [her] bib and tucker' was always a lively, charming writer, never more so than in her record of her own struggles and adventures.--Choice

The editors of this text have collected diaries, journals, and year-end ``Notes and Memoranda'' and from them assembled a single continuous chronological record of Alcott's life from her first entry in 1843 to the end of her life in 1888. For the most part, the entries are the sketchy unartistic fare that comprise diary entries (even those of gifted writers), but there are moments both touching and memorable--a recollection of a weary Bronson Alcott returning home from a disastrous lecture tour and anecdotes of the wounded in a Union hospital. Notes providing numerous identifications and directing the reader to sources for further study follow the entries for each year. Most useful to the student interested in circumstances of composition since it evidences Alcott's state of mind at various times and her attitudes toward major events, but not essential.-- Frank Pisano, Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park

Alcott's journals offer a literate, poignant, often humorous portrait of a singular woman.

It's a credit to Louisa May Alcott's timeless storytelling abilities that her thoughts on woman suffrage, slavery, and even berry picking are nevertheless illuminating.

The bubbling young woman who said she was 'born with a boy's spirit under [her] bib and tucker' was always a lively, charming writer, never more so than in her record of her own struggles and adventures.