"Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) is, of course, best known as the author of Little Women (1868). But she was also a noted essayist who wrote on a wide range of subjects, including her father's failed utopian commune, the benefits of an unmarried life, and her experience as a young woman sent to work in service to alleviate her family's poverty. Her first literary success was a contemporary close-up account of the American Civil War, brilliantly depicted...