Louisa May Alcott, born on November 29, 1832, was a 19th century American novelist best known as author of the novel Little Women and its sequels Little Men and Jo's Boys. Raised by her transcendentalist parents, Abigail May Alcott and Amos Bronson Alcott in New England, she grew up among many of the well-known intellectuals of the day such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau. Nevertheless, her family suffered severe financial difficulties and Alcott worked to help support the family from an early age. She began to receive critical success for her writing in the 1860s. She was also an aficionado of “blood and thunder tales,” short, sensational stories (like “Lost in a Pyramid, or The Curse of the Mummy) that she could sell to magazines. She found them easier to write than something as detailed as a novel. Early in her career, she sometimes used the pen name A. M. Barnard. She passed from the picture on March 6, 1888. Narrator Edward E. French is an Oscar nominated (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country) Special Makeup FX Artist. Contact Email edwardfrench06@hotmail.com.