Hospital Sketches Louisa May Alcott Books
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Hospital Sketches (1863) is a compilation of four sketches based on letters Louisa May Alcott sent home during the six weeks she spent as a volunteer nurse for the Union Army during the American Civil War in Georgetown.
Hospital Sketches Louisa May Alcott Books
The first chapter had me worried. Here was a flighty, shallow young woman wallowing in self-pity because she is leaving home for the first time. Certainly such a thing would be more dramatic in the mid-1860's, but I was squirming thinking that perhaps this was a character who would just annoy me with her feminine drama about leaving home and finding herself.My apologies, Ms. Alcott. I should have known you wouldn't disappoint.
When Trib Periwinkle signs up to become a wartime nurse, she is really only looking for a diversion, a little adventure, maybe. What she finds is life-changing event. This book is divided up into four chapters: Chapter 1 is about the leaving of family; Chapter 2 is about Trib's adventures and misadventures during the travel; Chapter 3 describes her first real nursing duties as Civil War soldiers are brought in; Chapter 4 is a maturing as the seasoned nurse begins to settle into her duties.
The story is told with equal amounts of horror and humor and innocence and experience. The book was written as a series of sketches, or letters sent home when Alcott herself served as a nurse during the Civil War. Tracing her growth from silly teenager to skilled caregiver reminded me of my own walk through various trials of life.
Alcott's real experiences as war nurse shows very clearly and although the story is fictionalized, the horrors of war wounds and helping men accept their own deaths rings true. The book is brief, but enjoyable (the wrong word, really considering the subject, but true nevertheless); and is a very good example of Alcott's writing style.
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Hospital Sketches Louisa May Alcott Books Reviews
Reading this have me a window into time, from the perspective of an educated woman. I learned a lot and enjoyed reading it.
The author is a fine observer of places and personalities, with the talent to immerse her reader in a Civil War Union Army hospital. She is honest about the frustration, the sorrow, and how she's ultimately driven to voice her Abolitionist views, though her opinions of African-Americans are very much of her time and status. Yet she finds humor and hope while tending her patients. Perfect for Civil War buffs, health care workers, and Alcott fans. I love getting such interesting books for free!
Having long been a fan of Louisa May Alcott, I truly enjoyed walking back in time with her to the front in the Civil War and finding her voice so clear, so flippant, so alive. She continues to impress me, every time I read anything of hers, as a bold and brilliant example of clear-thinking and self-defined womanhood at a time when women did not have many rights and most could not have imagined living as a single adult as she did. Her writings about the war bring it so touchingly into focus and are especially poignant to me, given that she was not to live long herself. I believe she ultimately died from the illness she acquired during her Civil War nursing efforts. Her love of language and of free thought burst across every page as she writes often tongue in cheek making fun of herself and delighting in small pleasures. Her love of the soldiers she tried to help also comes across so movingly that they themselves seem to be captured in time in her portrayal of them and their struggles. I can highly recommend this small book, a dense gem with a lot to offer.
Hospital Sketches is a classic of LMA. The first edition was compiled from several letters she wrote to her family while serving as a nurse's helper for wounded soldiers in a hospital in Washington DC during the early part of the Civil War. This short journal was an astounding success because the public was ravenous for any news which related to their husbands and sons, far from home, being killed and wounded in the war. It started her major writing career. Later editions were expanded with more material. The kindle edition is nicely organized and readable. The book is also available in Gutenberg.org.
This little book tells what is was like to work in a Civil War hospital. It is autobiographical, although the author changes her name in the narrative, which was considered proper in women's writing at the time.
Louisa May Alcott had an ability to tolerate chaos and laugh at herself, which lends a charm to her writing, even though it is the sometimes wordy prose that was common in the 1860's. I found the book quick to read and enjoyable.
The book would have been enhanced with a brief biography of the author, perhaps on the back cover. She is, of course, best known for her books for young people, but she had other accomplishments which are remarkable considering that she was afflicted with mercury poisoning, a result of medication given for typhoid, which she contracted in the hospital. In this book, she describes the bout with typhoid from the point of view of her becoming a patient in her room, and how kind the staff was to her. She tells that she lost her hair as an effect of the medication. Eventually her father shows up and she goes back to Massachusetts with him.
Alcott based the book on letters she wrote home while serving in the hospital. Some were hastily written and she did not edit them strenuously because she did not want to lose the immediacy of the writing. In a few places, I longed for more clarity. Also, she makes references to literary characters of the time and most of these were lost on me. Still, there is much of value in this book and it is worth reading.
When I bought this book, I was thinking this was a clinical observer's take on the hospitals during the Civil War given Alcott work later in her life. What found remained me of some Mark Twains observations of the corresponding of the time .Alcott offers her own reflections of the time. There's caring mixed with satire .Never realized Alcotts sense of humor.
If you like the PBS program Mercy Street you 'll like this book. Seems like it could have been the inspiration for the program
The first chapter had me worried. Here was a flighty, shallow young woman wallowing in self-pity because she is leaving home for the first time. Certainly such a thing would be more dramatic in the mid-1860's, but I was squirming thinking that perhaps this was a character who would just annoy me with her feminine drama about leaving home and finding herself.
My apologies, Ms. Alcott. I should have known you wouldn't disappoint.
When Trib Periwinkle signs up to become a wartime nurse, she is really only looking for a diversion, a little adventure, maybe. What she finds is life-changing event. This book is divided up into four chapters Chapter 1 is about the leaving of family; Chapter 2 is about Trib's adventures and misadventures during the travel; Chapter 3 describes her first real nursing duties as Civil War soldiers are brought in; Chapter 4 is a maturing as the seasoned nurse begins to settle into her duties.
The story is told with equal amounts of horror and humor and innocence and experience. The book was written as a series of sketches, or letters sent home when Alcott herself served as a nurse during the Civil War. Tracing her growth from silly teenager to skilled caregiver reminded me of my own walk through various trials of life.
Alcott's real experiences as war nurse shows very clearly and although the story is fictionalized, the horrors of war wounds and helping men accept their own deaths rings true. The book is brief, but enjoyable (the wrong word, really considering the subject, but true nevertheless); and is a very good example of Alcott's writing style.
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