Hospital Sketches: An Army Nurse’s True Account of Her Experiences during the Civil War
About this audiobook
In the novel Little Women, Mr. March goes off to war. But in real life, it was Jo March (Louisa May Alcott herself, an avowed abolitionist) who traveled to Washington to nurse Northern soldiers. This is Alcott’s memoir but she chose to use the pseudonym “Tribulation Periwinkle” to tell her story.
Despite the subject matter, her account is full of amusing anecdotes as she makes her way alone from Concord, Massachusetts to DC, trying to finagle a free ticket and convinced she will drown during the journey. Profiles of the soldiers she tended are full of compassion, pathos, and even a bit of humor. The book was hugely popular among those at home eager for war news. Its publication introduced Alcott’s unique voice to the public and launched the career of a great American writer. Sharp-eared listeners will discover that the names and personalities of three soldiers were inspirations for characters in Little Women.
About the author
Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, on November 29, 1832. She and her three sisters—Anna, Elizabeth, and May—were educated by their father, philosopher/ teacher Bronson Alcott, and raised on the practical Christianity of their mother, Abigail May. Louisa spent her childhood in Boston and in Concord, Massachusetts, where her days were enlightened by visits to Ralph Waldo Emerson's library, excursions into nature with Henry David Thoreau, and theatricals in the barn at Hillside. Like her character Jo March from Little Women, young Louisa was a tomboy. For Louisa, writing was an early passion. She had a rich imagination, and often her stories became melodramas that she and her sisters would act out for friends. At age fifteen, troubled by the poverty that plagued her family, she vowed to make something of herself. Confronting a society that offered little opportunity to women seeking employment, Louisa remained determined; whether as a teacher, seamstress, governess, or household servant, for many years Louisa did any work she could find. Louisa's career as an author began with poetry and short stories that appeared in popular magazines. In 1854, when she was twenty-two, her first book, Flower Fables, was published. Another milestone along her literary path was Hospital Sketches, which was based on the letters she had written home from her post as a nurse in Washington, D.C., during the Civil War. When Louisa was thirty-five, her publisher asked her to write a book for girls. Thus, she wrote Little Women, which is based on Louisa and her sisters' coming of age and is set in Civil War New England. Jo March was the first American juvenile heroine to act from her own individuality; a living, breathing person rather than the idealized stereotype that was then prevalent in children's fiction. In all, Louisa published over thirty books and collections of stories. She died on March 6, 1888, only two days after her father.
Anne Hancock began her career with the Library of Congress's National Library Service (NLS) Talking Books Program, where she has narrated more than 300 audiobooks in a variety of genres. An AudioFile Earphones Award winner, she has lived in France and the Netherlands and uses her training in the languages of both countries in her narration. In addition, she has successfully narrated books with English and Irish accents.
