Contents
From Hospital Sketches (1863)
I. Obtaining Supplies
IV. A Night
My Contraband (1863)
Pauline's Passion and Punishment (published anonymously; 1863)
Behind a Mask (writing as A. M. Barnard; 1866)
Happy Women (1868)
How I Went Out to Service (1874)

Best known as the author of Little Women, Louisa May Alcott (1832?88) grew up in a community of New England transcendentalists that included Thoreau and Emerson. Because her learned but impractical father was a poor provider, she supported her family by writing stories for magazines while she was still a teenager. Alcott worked in Washington, D.C., during the Civil War as a nurse, recording her experiences in Hospital Sketches, and her many novels are particularly noteworthy for their portraits of strong, self-reliant heroines.