Eight Cousins

Orphaned at thirteen, Rose Campbell, a pale, delicate girl, goes to live among her many aunts and her seven boy cousins on the 'Aunt Hill' in New England. When her guardian, the kind and sensible Uncle Alec, a doctor and sailor, returns from abroad, he takes charge of her upbringing with modern ideas: fresh air, exercise, simple clothes and good food instead of medicines, and a practical education, and Rose grows strong, cheerful and independent among her lively cousins.

Louisa May Alcott published the book in 1875, with a sequel, Rose in Bloom, and its views on healthy living for girls were progressive for their time. Read Little Women, and see her life.

Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888) grew up in Concord, Massachusetts, daughter of the idealistic and often penniless educator Bronson Alcott; Emerson and Thoreau were family friends and teachers. To support her family she sewed, taught, worked as a servant and wrote sensational thrillers under a pen name.

During the Civil War she nursed soldiers in Washington until she fell gravely ill. When her publisher asked for a book for girls, she wrote Little Women (1868), drawn from her own family, and it made her famous and secure. She campaigned against slavery and for women's right to vote.