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The Civil War hit. Louisa wished she could be a boy so she could go out and fight, but had to settle for being a nurse. The conditions in the Army hospital were appalling, and she contracted typhoid only after a month of being out. She hated to leave, but she was so ill, she had no choice. Her hair was cut off during her sickness, long hair that reached down to her ankles. Her emotions about this fueled the scene in “Little Women” where Jo sells her hair, a comic scene in the book but also one of sorrow as well.
As she recovered at her Concord home, Louisa wrote several short stories about her experiences, called “Hospital Sketches,” and they were received eagerly by the newspapers, as the public was longing to know how their boys away from home were doing. She later wrote these stories into a book.
Her recovery from her illness was taking much longer than she would have liked. Trying to find a way to refresh her body, she sailed for Europe, hoping that the change would be good for her. While there, she made good friends with a young man named Ladislav Wisniewski, and they toured quite a bit together.
When she returned home, her publisher asked her for a book for girls. Louisa refused. She had grown up as a tomboy; what did she know about girls? But her publisher kept asking, and finally she relented. She’d actually thought about using her own family as the basis for a book, but didn’t think anyone would be interested in it. Now that it had been requested, she set to work and turned out the story, ending with “Meg’s” engagement. The character “Laurie” was pure fiction, although he may have been based somewhat on Ladislav. “I won’t marry Jo to Laurie to please anybody,” she declared, and she didn’t.
The book was wildly successful, more than Louisa had ever thought. She was asked for a sequel, which became “Little Men,” after she lengthened the original “Little Women” story. Book after book followed, and suddenly she had the money to help her family in the ways she’d always dreamed.
Louisa never married. Her health didn’t return after her sickness, and while she worked hard and did her very best to care for her family, she wasn’t as strong as she once was. She died in her mid-fifties, just two days after her father.
I have always loved Louisa May Alcott. Her stories are glimpses into a life that is so much simpler than ours, a bit of heaven for us to look forward to when we open her books. I was disappointed to learn that she never was swept off her feet by a Laurie or a Professor Bhaer of her own, but she lived and died doing what she loved: protecting and loving her family.
It was fun to read this book about Louisa and see just how many of Louisa’s own experiences found their way into the pages of her books. Pick up a copy today and see how many of them you find.
(“Invincible Louisa” was first published in 1933 by Scholastic.)