Scribbles, Sorrows, and Russet Leather Boots: The Life of Louisa May Alcott

Insightful, exciting, and deeply moving, Liz Rosenberg’s distinctive portrait of the author of Little Women reveals some of her life’s more complex and daring aspects.

Moody and restless, teenage Louisa longed for freedom. Faced with the expectations of her loving but hapless family, the Alcotts, and of nineteenth-century New England society, Louisa struggled to find her place. On long meandering runs through the woods behind Orchard House, she thought about a future where she could write a...