A good fit of illness proves the value of health; real danger tries one's mettle; and self-sacrifice sweetens character. Through a series of letters sent home while serving as a volunteer nurse for the Union Army, Louisa May Alcott created a raw and honest story of battlefield medicine during the American Civil War. Featuring a series of compassionate portraits of the soldiers she encountered, Hospital Sketches both recounted the desperate struggles of hospital life during wartime and gave a personal narrative of women's growing role in medicine and the military. The letters brought Alcott immediate recognition and began an astonishingly successful literary career that culminated in the publication of Little Women

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