A Garland for Girls is a series of vignettes by Louisa May Alcott that illustrate the idea by Sir Philip Sidney that "They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts." The reader is introduced to several young women who discover great satisfaction when they do what each can do and still have a renewed desire to be of more assistance while also witnessing the more somber parts of life. In "Pansies" Mrs. Warburton assures others that "hearts don't break if they know where to go for strength." Ruth asks in "Water-lilies" if she can be forgiven her modesty, courage, and faithfulness. Rosamund of "Little Button Rose" declares "you've made my troubles go, can't I make yours?" Finally in "Mountain-Laurel" Becky realizes that she can become a more useful and honored woman by putting the directives of her poetry into her life than by singing for her fame. For the characters of Alcott's Garland, "When everything seemed darkest, good luck came" (Simon and Schuster).
Louisa May Alcott, November 29, 1832 March 6, 1888, was an American novelist and poet best known as the author of the novel Little Women (1868) and its sequels Little Men (1871) and Jo's Boys (1886). Raised by her transcendentalist parents, Abigail May and Amos Bronson Alcott in New England, she grew up among many of the well-known intellectuals of the day such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau.
Her family suffered severe financial difficulties and Alcott worked to help support the family from an early age. She began to receive critical success for her writing in the 1860s. Early in her career, she sometimes used the pen name A. M. Barnard, under which Alcott wrote novels for young adults.
Alcott died at age 55 of a stroke in Boston, on March 6, 1888, two days after her father's death (Wikipedia).