The Horoscope of Louisa May Alcott
Profile of a Sagittarian Writer
Alcott was born to transcendentalist, educator, and lecturer Amos Bronson Alcott and Abigail May Alcott. The Alcotts were members of the New England-based Transcendentalists, a philosophical group that believed that the experience of God was achieved through a person’s intuition and imagination, not through studying religious dogma.
Louisa May Alcott's Astrological Horoscope
Louisa May Alcott was born on November 29, 1832 at 12:30 AM in Germantown, Pennsylvania, where Bronson worked as a schoolmaster. When Alcott was two, the family moved back to Massachusetts, where Bronson established an experimental school.
Alcott’s chart shows the Sun in Sagittarius in the third house, the Moon in Aquarius in the sixth house, and Virgo rising. The third house is the house of early education, siblings and neighbors, and the Sun placed in this house indicates someone with strong familial and local connections. Sagittarius is the sign of education, and Sagittarian people either embrace education wholeheartedly or educate themselves through travel or through a philosophy.
Most of Alcott’s early education was at the hands of her father with occasional tutors. Her transcendentalist neighbors were none other than Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, who were friends of the Alcott family and who opened their libraries to Alcott and her sisters. Thus Alcott received an eclectic education and from an early age discussed philosophy, religion, politics, and literature with some of the best minds of her generation.
As a teenager, she was employed as a governess to Emerson’s daughter Ellen, and her first book, Flower Fables, were stories she wrote for Ellen’s entertainment.
Alcott’s Moon in the sixth house indicates an unorthodox approach toward diet and hygiene, and this was true in her case. Her family’s transcendentalist philosophy included a strict vegetarian diet which was unusual in the nineteenth century. Bronson was an avid gardener and cultivated apple trees on his property, giving his home the title Orchard House.
Virgo rising indicates a person who is a diligent, organized worker who seeks to be of practical service to those in need. Financial hardship made it necessary for Alcott to be a breadwinner, and beginning in her teen years she worked as a teacher, companion to the elderly, seamstress and servant.
At age 30, Alcott volunteered as a nurse during the Civil War at Union Hospital in Washington, D.C. Here letters home were subsequently published under the title Hospital Sketches. While nursing the soldiers Alcott caught typhoid fever, and the side effects of mercury treatment caused permanent physical damage.
Alcott's Little Women
Helping to pay down the family debt, Alcott created a novel of her adolescence with her sisters and mother. The title was Little Women, or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. With the surname March, these four sisters were based on Alcott’s real siblings. Meg was based on Louisa’s older sister Anna. Josephine, or Jo, was based on Louisa herself. Beth was based on her younger sister Elizabeth, or Lizzie, and Amy was based on her youngest sister Abigail, or Abby. Marmee, their mother, was based on mother Abigail May, who was a tower of strength for her daughters and neighbors.
In the novel Mr. March is working as an army chaplain during the war, but comes home briefly. It is interesting to note that Mercury, the planet ruling Alcott’s rising sign Virgo and ruling communication and writing, is very strongly placed at the apex of a T-square in Alcott’s horoscope in her fourth house of home and family. Mercury also rules the literary sign Gemini, which is the sign on Alcott’s tenth house of career. Thus Mercury rules her presentation to the world (Virgo rising) and her career (Gemini tenth house). It is no wonder that Alcott’s talents lie in writing about her family experiences (fourth house) and her siblings (Sun in the third house).
Alcott's Publication and Success
Little Women was published on September 30, 1868 and became an overnight sensation, selling over 2,000 copies. Its critical reception was so excellent that critics called the novel a classic and readers clamored for a sequel.
Riding the wave of success, Alcott published a second volume the following year titled Good Wives. In 1880 both volumes were combined into the classic known today as Little Women. The classic became an international success and has been adapted to play, musical, opera, film, and animated feature.
Louisa May Alcott's Final Years
Alcott’s health slowly deteriorated from the Mercury poisoning incurred from her treatment of typhoid fever. She died on March 6, 1888 at age 55 in a nursing home in Boston, Massachusetts.
Source:
- Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and her Father by John Matteson
Louisa May Alcott
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