Did you know that Louisa May Alcott was addicted to opium?
She began using morphine to ease the after-effects of typhoid fever contracted while working as a nurse during the Civil War. The illness was at the time treated with mercury, which caused pain, weakness and hallucinations to the patients. In addition, Louisa May Alcott sometimes suffered from deep depression. In fact, she might even have been bipolar.
Other interesting facts about the author:
Her parents supported the abolition of slavery and were part of the Underground Railroad.
As a child, Louisa May Alcott was a tomboy running races, climbing trees and leaping fences.
Her family was poor, so she started working at the age of 15, often as a domestic servant or as a teacher.
Her family moved over 20 times in 30 years.
She had a crush on Henry David Thoreau. In fact, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Ralph Waldo Emerson were family friends.
Louisa May Alcott wrote gothic thrillers under the pen names A.M. Barnard, Aunt Weedy, Flora Fairfield, Oranthy Bluggage, and Minerva Moody.
She led the campaign to ban Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in Massachusetts.
Louisa May Alcott died of intestinal cancer two days after her father on March 6, 1888. She was buried in Concord’s Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, a few plots away from Henry David Thoreau.
Cécile Sune was born in Lyon, France, and her obsession with books started when she was 14. Her grandparents had lent her Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, and she spent part of the summer indoors reading. Needless to say, her tan didn't really improve that year! It was also around that time that Cécile fell in love with the English language. Several years later, in 1999, Cécile moved to Toronto, Canada, with her cat and 5 suitcases. Her love of reading greatly increased when she discovered that English books were much cheaper than French novels. In 2013, she decided to start a blog to share her passion. Cécile now lives in Ottawa, Canada, with her husband and their daughter, and works as a freelance translator (CS Revision).
As a child, she was sent to an English convent for her education, and she was a very dedicated student. In fact, the other girls called her “Sainte Aurore” (her real name is Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dudevant). When her grandmother found out that her granddaughter wanted to devote her life to religion, she immediately removed her from the convent and brought her home. Other fun facts about the author: George Sand’s father was…
In fact, he loved cigars and found smoking very relaxing. Other fun facts about the author: His real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens. His father died of pneumonia when he was 12, and Mark Twain became an apprentice printer at the Missouri Courier. Later, he wrote for local newspapers. The author also worked as a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi river. He got his pen name, Mark Twain, from steamboat slang for 12…
She had problems with handwriting and spelling. As a result, she had to dictate all her novels. She also had difficulty with arithmetic and foreign language learning. Other fun facts about the author: Agatha Christie has sold more than 2 billion books worldwide. She wrote more than 90 novels and two dozen collections of short stories. Her work has been translated into more than a hundred languages. Her father died of pneumonia when she…