Civil War Hospital Sketches Book

I read this concurrently with Becoming Dickens: The Invention of a Novelist -- unintentionally, but appropriately -- as not only was Dickens one of Alcott's favorite writers, but this fictionalized memoir of Alcott's could be said to have led to her "becoming Louisa May Alcott".

Similar to the start of the Dickens phenomenon with The Pickwick Papers being published under the name of "Boz", Alcott gained her first bout of fame with this work, writing under the pseudonym of "Tribulation Periwinkle" (one sees the Dickens influence immediately). Her short time as a Civil War nurse in a Union hospital is expressed in humorous, sensitive, ironic and impassioned prose. Like her literary hero, she captures the telling details.

Nurse Trib P., reflecting on her life-changing experiences ministering to the wounded and dying under adverse conditions, discovers a philosophy of life, and her own writing style. In much the same way the sketches of The Pickwick Papers led to Dickens' development of Oliver Twist, Alcott's hospital sketches paved her way toward Little Women.

All of which has me wondering, again, if I would've become the Dickens fan I am without my childhood reading of Alcott.

"I'd rather laugh than cry, when I must sing out anyhow, so just say that bit from Dickens again, please, and I'll stand it like a man." He did; for "Mrs. Cluppins," "Chadband," and "Sam Weller," always helped him through; thereby causing me to lay another offering of love and admiration on the shrine of the god of my idolatry, though he does wear too much jewelry and talk slang.