A good fit of illness proves the value of health; real danger tries one's mettle; and self-sacrifice sweetens character.
Through a series of letters sent home while serving as a volunteer nurse for the Union Army, Louisa May Alcott created a raw and honest story of battlefield medicine during the American Civil War. Featuring a series of compassionate portraits of the soldiers she encountered, Hospital Sketches both recounted the desperate struggles of hospital life during wartime and gave a personal narrative of women's growing role in medicine and the military.
The letters brought Alcott immediate recognition and began an astonishingly successful literary career that culminated in the publication of Little Women.
A good fit of illness proves the value of health; real danger tries one's mettle; and self-sacrifice sweetens character.
Through a series of letters sent home while serving as a volunteer nurse for the Union Army, Louisa May Alcott created a raw and honest story of battlefield medicine during the American Civil War. Featuring a series of compassionate portraits of the soldiers she encountered, Hospital Sketches both recounted the desperate struggles of hospital life during wartime and gave a personal narrative of women's growing role in medicine and the military.
The letters brought Alcott immediate recognition and began an astonishingly successful literary career that culminated in the publication of Little Women.
Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) föddes och levde i USA. Alcott var dotter till filosofen och fritänkaren Bronson Alcott, som ingick i kretsen av transcendentalister. Fadern var särskilt intresserad av pedagogiska experiment, och Louisa May Alcott ägnade en stor del av sitt liv åt att förverkliga faderns idéer.
Hon är mest känd för sin ungdomsroman Unga kvinnor (Little Women), som senare lett till flera filmatiseringar, men har även skrivit fabler, gotiska berättelser och romaner för vuxna.
