Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet best known for writing Little Women, published in 1868. The novel's success led to several sequels, including Good Wives (1869), Little Men (1871), and Jo's Boys (1886). Alcott was raised in New England by her transcendentalist parents, Abigail May and Amos Bronson Alcott. Growing up in this intellectual environment, she was exposed to many well-known thinkers and writers of her time, including Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau. Encouraged by her family, Alcott began writing from an early age, developing the skills that would eventually make her one of the most celebrated authors of her era.