Eight Cousins

Eight Cousins (1875) is a novel by American author, feminist, and abolitionist Louisa May Alcott. Based on her experience of being raised by a father dedicated to education reform, and grounded in her radical beliefs on the role of women in society, Eight Cousins is a masterpiece of children’s literature that explores themes of family, death, and perseverance.

Rose Campbell is a young girl when her parents pass away. Orphaned, she is taken to the Boston home of her great aunts, the Campbell sisters, who raise her while awaiting the arrival of their brother Alec, Rose’s legal guardian. An heiress, Rose must adjust to the rhythms of New England high society while also learning that the limitations placed on women―which her uncle disdains―must not be allowed to restrain her. When Alec returns from business overseas, she is introduced to her male uncles and cousins. Although she is nervous at first―and still in mourning for her affectionate father― she soon finds herself appreciative of her new male role model, who educates her, rejects the oppressive women’s fashion of the day, and encourages her to take control of her life and fortune. Although her more conservative aunts are first wary of Alec’s influence, they too grow to understand his moral and political principles, creating the harmony necessary for Rose’s upbringing and development into a capable young woman.

Although less popular than Alcott’s “March Family Saga,” Eight Cousins is a brilliant work that captures the power of love and community over prejudice and convention, and―like each of the author’s works―has long been read and adored by children and adults alike.

This edition of Louisa May Alcott’s Eight Cousins is a classic of American literature and children’s fiction reimagined for modern readers.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) was an American novelist, poet, and short story writer. Born in Philadelphia to a family of transcendentalists―her parents were friends with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau―Alcott was raised in Massachusetts. She worked from a young age as a teacher, seamstress, and domestic worker in order to alleviate her family’s difficult financial situation. These experiences helped to guide her as a professional writer, just as her family’s background in education reform, social work, and abolition―their home was a safe house for escaped slaves on the Underground Railroad―aided her development as an early feminist and staunch abolitionist. Her career began as a writer for the Atlantic Monthly in 1860, took a brief pause while she served as a nurse in a Georgetown Hospital for wounded Union soldiers during the Civil War, and truly flourished with the 1868 and 1869 publications of parts one and two of Little Women. The first installment of her acclaimed and immensely popular “March Family Saga” has since become a classic of American literature and has been adapted countless times for the theater, film, and television. Alcott was a prolific writer throughout her lifetime, with dozens of novels, short stories, and novelettes published under her name, as the pseudonym A.M. Barnard, and anonymously.