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Hospital Sketches

louisa may alcott

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"Hospital Sketches" is a fictionalised account of Louisa May Alcott's experiences nursing during the Civil War and presented in a collection of letters. The book garnered Alcott's first critical recognition for her observations and humour.

Tribulation Periwinkle, looking for something to do, follow the suggestion of her brother, Tom, and decided to become a nurse for the Union Army. However, her difficulties begin before she even gets to the hospital. She describes the inconveniences of travel on her way to Washington, D.C. Once Nurse Periwinkle arrives at the Hurly-Burly Hotel, a temporary hospital, she has to learn how to nurse.

80 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1863

This edition

Format
80 pages, Paperback
Published
October 25, 2005 by Dodo Pr
ISBN
9781406501025
ASIN
1406501026
Language
English

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About the author

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louisa may alcott

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Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet best known for writing the novel Little Women (1868) and its sequels Good Wives (1869), Little Men (1871) and Jo's Boys (1886). Raised in New England by her transcendentalist parents, Abigail May Alcott and Amos Bronson Alcott, she grew up among many well-known intellectuals of the day, including Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Alcott's family suffered from financial difficulties, and while she worked to help support the family from an early age, she also sought an outlet in writing. She began to receive critical success for her writing in the 1860s. Early in her career, she sometimes used pen names such as A.M. Barnard, under which she wrote lurid short stories and sensation novels for adults that focused on passion and revenge.
Published in 1868, Little Women is set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts, and is loosely based on Alcott's childhood experiences with her three sisters, Abigail May Alcott Nieriker, Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, and Anna Bronson Alcott Pratt. The novel was well-received at the time and is still popular today among both children and adults. It has been adapted for stage plays, films, and television many times.
Alcott was an abolitionist and a feminist and remained unmarried throughout her life. She also spent her life active in reform movements such as temperance and women's suffrage. She died from a stroke in Boston on March 6, 1888, just two days after her father's death.

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Rating(4 / 5.0, 100 votes)
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vorumzo
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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The writing style was odd, as though she were trying too hard to be "literary": hyperbole, allusion, and flowery language were too excessive, in my opinion. Still, excellent insight and description of war experiences, well worth reading.
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Srhachy
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Hospital Sketches describes Alcott's sojourn (cut short due to illness) as a nurse in a Washington, D.C., hospital during the Civil War; it's witty in a rather Dickensian style (Alcott calls herself Tribulation Periwinkle, for example) and touching even though sentimental. I mostly enjoyed it, though I was bothered by Alcott's condescending attitude toward the black people for whose freedom she enthusiastically worked. Although she rejoices at the Emancipation Proclamation, she also clearly stereotypes blacks, as "obsequious, trickish, lazy, and ignorant, yet kind-hearted," and does not provide the kind of individual portrait she does for the white soldiers and doctors.

The edition I read is part of the Bedford Series in History and Culture, which are intended as teaching texts, and I thought the editor, Alice Fahs, did an excellent job in her introduction in placing the book in the context of its time, both literary and historical, and examining Alcott's racial attitudes.
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alhiris
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Consider this an endorsement to read more Louisa May Alcott beyond just little women!
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gxyrlu
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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As eloquently written as any other of Alcott's work, this is an insightful glimpse into the war from an unlikely perspective. She writes with a "tone of levity" about it all, but the horrors of war still manage to show themselves, albeit the effects of their appearance somewhat blunted by Alcott's delivery. She remarks repeatedly about both her sympathy and affection for the the African-Americans working along side her in the hospital, and that is not only not the popular opinion, but one she is best to keep to herself so as to not bring undue trouble upon herself or her co-laborers. The conditions, treatments, and general organization of the hospital as she describes them are, to a 21st century citizen, nothing short of appalling and left me amazed that anyone recovered from anything other than the most minor of wounds or illnesses.

This book is one of the more directly personal writings of Alcott's, as she freely opines about her work, her setting, her patients, the other nurses and doctors, and her own thoughts and emotions about it all. She also confesses to wishing to have been a "lord of creation" (i.e., a man) rather than a lady, which is a fairly incredible confession to have made in 1863. On the whole, I am left feeling I know her better, and have learned a few things about life during the civil war too.
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su5anoo
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Ambleside Online strikes again - leading me to good books that I had never heard of. This is recommended for something (free reads? Biography? Don’t remember) in Year 10.

Louisa May Alcott had a book of Civil War hospital sketches? What?!

73 pages filled with good humor and tender concern for those in her care…the first chapter(s) were a bit rambunctious and irritating to me, but overall I really enjoyed the book even though there is a lot of heartache too. I think it is filled with examples of great courage from Americans walking through incredibly difficult things - such a bold contrast to what I’ve been reading about in “Bad Therapy” (Shrier) - maybe reading this has been a healthy antidote!
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ThatRandomDude
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Not a memorable or engaging story. Most of it was rambling details and introspection. Too many characters briefly appear with very little activity. There is no plot other than one chapter about treating a particular soldier. That was the only part of the book that grabbed my attention and actually gave an insight into a civil war hospital. I can see why this story didn't withstand the test of time.
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athenacat
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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“For a moment I felt bitterly indignant at this seeming carelessness of the value of life, the sanctity of death; then consoled myself with the thought that, when the great muster roll was called, these nameless men might be promoted above many whose tall monuments record the barren honors they have won.”

What a powerful, heart wrenching short story this was. I love war stories because they truly bring out the best and worst of human nature, laying them side by side so we can see what truly matters in life.
Louisa May Alcott is one of my all time favorite writers. Her insight, humility, and faith bring such truth to her writings. So much wisdom!
Knowing these story’s were based on her own experiences as a nurse makes it all the better.

“I maintain that the soldier who cries when his mother says ‘Good bye,’ is the boy to fight best, and die bravest, when the time comes, or go back to her better than he went.”

“while he waited, a better nurse than I had given bim a cooler draught, and healed him with a touch.”

“Now I knew that to him, as to so many, I was the poor substitute for mother, wife, or sister, and in his eyes no stranger, but a friend who hitherto had seemed neglectful;“

“A good fit of illness proves the value of health; real danger tries one's mettle; and self-sacrifice sweetens character.”

“All that is best and bravest in the hearts of men and women, comes out in scenes like these; and, though a hospital is a rough school, its lessons are both stern and salutary; and the humblest of pupils there, in proportion to his faithfulness, learns a deeper faith in God and in himself.”
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Rahzel
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Louisa May Alcott served as a nurse at a hospital in Georgetown during the Civil War, and Hospital Sketches is a collection of sketched of her time there. She writes about the soldiers in her care, the other doctors and nurses she works with, and the general day to day operation of a Union military hospital. These sketches are a really good look at this experience, though they feel a little sanitized. She does admit in the book’s opening chapter that they are a lighter take on her experience, presented this way to show a truer picture of daily life in the hospital. There is a particularly poignant chapter sharing the decline and death of of a solider in her care where Alcott’s gift for depicting human relationships is at her best. Warning though, there is a bit of racism in parts of this book, in how Alcott talks about the black people living and working in Georgetown. Though she and her family were abolitionists their attitudes about black people are not automatically enlightened.
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