Eight Cousins: The Aunt-Hill

An orphan heiress with six boy cousins and a houseful of aunts is taken in hand by an uncle who prescribes fresh air, plain food and no corsets. Louisa May Alcott had trained as a nurse and put her opinions on how girls were raised into the doctor's mouth. The aunts lose the argument, and the boy...

Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888) supported her family from girlhood — sewing, teaching, service as a Civil War nurse until typhoid nearly killed her — and wrote anonymous thrillers for the story papers before Little Women made her the household name she had not wanted. She never married, kept her si...