Louisa May Alcott 
A STRANGE LIFE 
Selected Essays of Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888) is, of course, best known as the author of Little Women (1868). But she was also a noted essayist who wrote on a wide range of subjects, including her father’s failed utopian commune, the benefits of an unmarried life, and her experience as a young woman sent to work in service to alleviate her family’s poverty. Her first literary success was a contemporary close-up account of the American Civil War, brilliantly depicted in Hospital Sketches drawn from her own experience of serving as an army nurse near the nation’s capitol. As with her famous novel, Alcott writes these essays with clear observation, unforgettable scenes, and one of the sharpest wits in American literature.
Blending gentle satire with reportage and emotive autobiography, Alcott’s exquisite essays are as exceptional as the novels she is known for. Published together for the first time, this delightful selection shows us another side to one of our most celebrated writers.

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Jane Smiley is the author of many novels and works of nonfiction. Her latest novel is A Dangerous Business, a mystery set in 1850s Monterey, California, and her latest non-fiction book is The Questions that Matter Most. She writes in many genres, and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for A Thousand Acres.