Alcott in 1862 served as a nurse in Georgetown, D.C during the Civil War. She wrote home what she observed there. Those harrowing and sometimes humorous letters compiled make up Hospital Sketches.
Charles Dickens, Washington Irving, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Agatha Christie, Louisa May Alcott, Anthony Trollope, Henry Van Dyke, Clement C. Moore & E. T. A. Hoffmann