This book is entitled "Silver Pitchers: And Independence, A Centennial Love Story" by Louisa May Alcott, one of the great authors of the nineteenth century. Louisa May Alcott (1832 - 1888) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet best known as the author of Little Women (1868) and its sequels Little Men (1871) and Jo's Boys (1886). Raised in New England, she grew up among many well-known intellectuals of the day, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Alcott's family suffered from financial difficulties, and while she worked to help support her family at an early age, she also sought an outlet in writing. She began to receive critical acclaim for her writing in the 1860's, and early in her career, she used pen names such as A. M. Barnard, under which she wrote lurid short stories and sensation novels for adults that focused on passion and revenge. An unexpected bio for this famous author. She was also an abolitionist and a feminist. Little Women was a semi-autobiographical account of her childhood years with her sisters in Concord, Massachusetts. Unlike Jo, however, Alcott never married. She was an advocate of women's suffrage and was the first woman to register to vote in Concord. Alcott suffered chronic health problems in her later years, including vertigo. She and her earliest biographers attributed her illness to mercury poisoning. During her American Civil War service, she contracted typhoid fever and was treated with a compound containing mercury, but recent analysis of her illness suggests that her health problems may have been associated with an autoimmune disease, not mercury exposure, and she died of a stroke in 1888. The book here has gilt bands and the monogram of the Roberts Brothers on the spine, black lines, black lettering and a decorative silver pitcher on the front cover, brown endpapers, the owner's name and "June 1876" inscribed on a blank endpaper in front, the title page lists some of her other novels and says the book was published by the Roberts Brothers in 1876, and it has 1876 on the copyright page, which makes the book a first edition (the dates on the title page and copyright page match, with just a single date and no other printings), then a Contents page and 307 pages of text, followed by eight terrific full-page illustrations to advertise some of Alcott's other books published by the Roberts Brothers. The book is a collection of stories Alcott wrote in 1875, the Centennial year of the American Revolution, and they have a strong theme of independence and romantic love, so definitely a centennial love story, and only 2500 copies of the first edition were printed, in terra cotta, green, and red cloth, and with "June 1876" inscribed on a front endpaper, this is probably an early first edition in the second state. The book is 8vo, and measures 6 3/4 x 4 3/4 in. wide and is in very good condition. The binding is tight and the pages and text are very clean, with just light bumps and a speck of light wear at the heel and crown of the spine, specks of rubbing at the tips, and two tips slightly turned in, and an attractive copy of this romance novel by Louisa May Alcott. See A Pocket Guide to the Identification of First Editions by Bill McBride. #31 #7032