Little Women

Louisa May Alcott, born in 1832, was the second child of Bronson Alcott of Concord, Massachusetts, a self-taught philosopher, school reformer, and utopian who was much too immersed in the world of ideas to ever succeed in supporting his family. That task fell to his wife and later to his enterprising daughter Louisa May. While her father lectured, wrote, and conversed with such famous friends as Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau, Louisa taught school, worked as a seamstress and nurse, took in laundry, and even hired herself out as a domestic servant at age nineteen. The small sums she earned often kept the family from complete destitution, but it was through her writing that she finally brought them financial independence. “I will make a battering-ram of my head,” she wrote in her journal, “and make a way through this rough-and-tumble world.”

FRANCESCA ROSSI graduated from the Scuola Internazionale di Comics (International School of Comics) in Florence. She publishes illustrated books for a number of Italian publishers, and designs book covers and posters. In addition to her work as an illustrator, she conducts workshops in schools and libraries, as well as making and decorating pottery. Francesca has illustrated many books for White Star, including Classic Fairy Tales by Charles Perrault, Fairy Tale Adventures, Classic Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm, and Around the World in Eighty Days. Francesca lives in Italy.