Born in 1832, Louisa May Alcott was the second of four daughters of Abigail May and Amos Bronson Alcott. Throughout most of her childhood and youth, her family lived in poverty, as her father, a visionary intellectual and educational reformer, struggled to make a living. Early in her career, Louisa May Alcott worked as a seamstress and teacher, and she also acted on the stage and served as a nurse during the American Civil War. She began writing at an early age, completing her first novel in 1849, the year she turned seventeen, although that novel was not published in her lifetime. Throughout her twenties and into her thirties, Alcott churned out sensational thrillers for the popular press in order to help support her family. In 1868, when a publisher commissioned her to write a book for girls, she drew on her own family experiences to write Little Women, which she finished in less than six weeks. The second book was published in 1869 (the two volumes now make up the one book). Alcott continued to write and publish extensively, finishing two sequels to Little Women: Little Men: Life at Plumfield with Jo's Boys (1871) and Jo’s Boys, and How They Turned Out (1886), as well as other literary works. Alcott never married; she died in 1888.