AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT OF HER POEM 'TO THE FIRST ROBIN', signed ('Louisa May Alcott'), 8 lines, 'Written by a little girl eight years old named - Louisa May Alcott', addressed to the Dutch-American author and editor Edward W. Bok (1863-1930), 1 page, oblong 16mo, April 1881

'Welcome, welcome little stranger
Fear no harm & fear no danger;
We are glad to see you here
For you sing sweet Spring is near,
Now the white snow melts away.
Now the flowers blossom gay,
Come, dear bird, & build your nest,
For we love robin best.'

For thirty years, Bok was editor of the Ladies Home Journal, published by his father-in-law Cyrus Curtis. Under Bok's leadership it became the leading magazine of the day. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1920 for The Americanization of Edward Bok. The present poem was published posthumously in 1889 in Ednah D. Cheney, Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters and Journals.

The main collections of Alcott's papers are at Harvard and the Alderman Library, University of Virginia.

PROVENANCE: David Lowenherz.