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144:, who paid her $ 40 for the book. At her father's suggestion, the book was dedicated to Hannah Stevenson, a friend who had helped Alcott secure her position as a volunteer nurse. The book, priced at 50 cents, earned the author five cents in royalties for every copy sold, with an additional five cents donated to children orphaned by the war. Years later,
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other supplies. On her 30th birthday on
November 29, 1862, she made up her mind to do more. She recorded in her journal, "Thirty years old. Decide to go to Washington as a nurse if I could find a place." She received her orders on December 11 and made her way to Georgetown, outside of Washington, D.C. While working as a nurse, Alcott contracted
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as they set off. Louisa May Alcott wrote to her friend Alf
Whitman that it was "a sight to behold". She was disappointed that she had to stay behind, lamenting, "as I can't fight, I will content myself with working with those who can." She joined local women who volunteered to sew clothes and provide
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predicted the sketches "likely to be popular, the subject and style of treatment alike commending it to the reader, and to the Army especially. I see nothing in the way of a good appreciation of Louisa's merits as a woman and a writer. Nothing could be more surprising to her or agreeable to us." Her
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While serving as a nurse, Alcott wrote several letters to her family in
Concord. At the urging of others, she prepared them for publication, slightly altering and fictionalizing them. The narrator of the stories was renamed Tribulation Periwinkle but the sketches are virtually authentic to Alcott's
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Tribulation
Periwinkle opens the story by complaining, "I want something to do." She dismisses suggestions to write a book, teach, get married, or start acting. When her younger brother suggests she "go nurse the soldiers", she immediately responds, "I will!" After substantial hardship in trying to
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father was right; when it proved popular, Alcott was surprised by her own success. As she wrote: "I cannot see why people like a few extracts from topsey turvey letters written on inverted tea kettles, waiting for gruel to warm, or poultices to cool, for boys to wake and be tormented."
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125:. The final sketch was published on June 26. Alcott herself did not care much for the writings, dismissing the idea that they were "witty", and admitted, "I wanted money." The pieces received great critical and popular acclaim making Alcott an overnight success.
161:(1868): "Shortsighted Louisa! Little did you dream that this same Roberts Brothers were to help you make your fortune a few years later." After that novel's success, Niles offered to republish
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obtain a spot, she has further difficulty finding a place on the train. She then describes her travel through New York, Philadelphia, and
Baltimore en route to Washington DC.
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called the book "fluent and sparkling, with touches of quiet humor and lively wit". Alcott herself wrote: "I find I've done a good thing without knowing it."
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Presentation by
Villanova University History Professor Judith Giesberg on "Civil War-Era Women and Volunteerism", focusing on Louisa May Alcott and
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rallied, inspiring many young men to volunteer. The company assembled on the town common on April 19, 1861, the anniversary of the
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Fourteen years later after its publication, Alcott reflected on avoiding
Roberts Brothers, who later published
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contacted
Redpath, hoping he would publish his own recollections as a Civil War nurse. As he wrote, the book
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The
Concord Quartet: Alcott, Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau, and the Friendship that Freed the American Mind
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wrote her a letter to applaud "her charming pictures of hospital service." The
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Immediately after her arrival, Periwinkle must attend to the wounded from the
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sent home during the six weeks she spent as a volunteer nurse for the
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1863 compilation of four stories based on letters by Louisa May Alcott
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under the
Roberts Brothers imprint, and Alcott slightly expanded it.
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Illustration of John, a Virginia blacksmith, from a later edition of
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Boston: James Redpath, Publisher, 221 Washington Street, 1863 at
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The first of the sketches was published on May 22, 1863, in the
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Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and her Father
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Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and her Father
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Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and her Father
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Twain, Alcott, and the Birth of the Adolescent Reform Novel
132:, who helped secure the publication of the sketches in the
37:(1863) is a compilation of four sketches based on letters
231:. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2007: 270.
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Irving to Irving: Author-Publisher Relations 1800–1974
462:(scanned books color original editions illustrated)
250:Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters, and Journals
401:. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: 219.
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320:Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women
307:Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women
209:Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women
487:at NYU Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database.
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359:. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1980: 278.
338:. New York: R. R. Bowker Company, 1974: 36.
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505:From the Battlefield to Little Women"
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283:. Macmillan, 1995: 263.
211:. MacMillan, 2009: 204.
150:Memoranda During the War
121:edited by family friend
67:Battle of Fredericksburg
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793:Elizabeth Sewall Alcott
620:A Modern Mephistopheles
564:A Long Fatal Love Chase
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357:Walt Whitman: A Life
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849:Henry David Thoreau
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834:Ralph Waldo Emerson
787:Anna Bronson Alcott
775:Amos Bronson Alcott
248:Cheney, Ednah Dow.
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128:Transcendentalist
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440:Hospital Sketches
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237:978-0-393-33359-6
207:Reisen, Harriet.
163:Hospital Sketches
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261:Matteson,
192:References
71:blacksmith
51:Georgetown
43:Union Army
729:(1879-87)
644:Jo's Boys
575:(1868-69)
169:Reception
117:magazine
819:(cousin)
813:(cousin)
801:(sister)
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783:(mother)
777:(father)
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318:Reisen,
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807:(uncle)
96:calomel
57:Summary
827:People
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
