Guy Lochhead, 07/09/10
American novelist best known for the novel ‘Little Women’, which was loosely based around her own upbringing. She was an active abolitionist and feminist; she housed a fugitive slave for a week in 1848, and was the first woman to register to vote in Concord, Massachusetts. As well as the style of writing she’s best known for – safe family dramas for children (‘Little Women’ etc.) – Alcott wrote fiery populist sensation stories under the name ‘A. M. Barnard’. She was part of a women’s writing group called ‘The Gilded Age’, which set out to address women’s issues in a modern and candid manner, and her books always have a keen social conscience. Alcott led an exciting life, and I would like to include her. She was a doer. I will include one of her sensationalist novels, ‘A Long Fatal Love Chase’, which was published after her death, and from which quarter of the profits go to the Orchard House Alcott museum, and quarter go to a vegetarian alternative school much like the one run by Alcott’s parents.