Liz Rosenberg at Lit Hub:
Her essays are rich with unerasable moments, and as in her greatest works of fiction, they strike the intersecting point between tragedy and comedy. If she tugs on heart-strings in her essays—and most assuredly she does—she also demonstrates a clear awareness of the funny side of life.
Alcott understood that habitual use of humor and exaggeration might incline readers to doubt the veracity of her non-fiction. At the end of Hospital Sketches she urges the reader to believe what is only partly true: “such a being as Nurse Periwinkle does exist, that she really did go to Washington, and…these Sketches are not romance.” Her fiction found its roots in real-life experiences and her non-fiction always contained kernels of invention. She largely shrugged off strict distinctions between fact and fiction.
more here.