Popular writer and feminist Louisa May Alcott has enjoyed unusual popularity over the years. Her best-known work, Little Women, published in 1868, spawned five feature films and has been translated into over 50 languages. Her life is explored in at least half a dozen biographies, and her earlier works have been rediscovered. Why have so many for so long responded to her work? You guessed it: Jupiter.

Alcott had an eventful life, and not an especially easy one. Saturn rises in Virgo as part of a T-square with Mercury in Sagittarius in her 4th house and Jupiter in Pisces conjunct the Descendant. Her upbringing was unusual, with great limitations but also rich rewards. Her parents were both reformers who supported social equality, abolition and women’s suffrage. Her mother was responsible for the home and family and later became an early professional social worker. Her father, Bronson Alcott, was an idealist and vegetarian who believed in self-denial (in keeping with Louisa’s Saturn in Virgo archetype). He ran an experimental school, brought the family to a utopian community, and would only accept donations for his work or lectures. The family was often impoverished and moved repeatedly.

But growing up, Louisa got to know many prominent writers and thinkers, including neighbors Emerson, Thoreau and Hawthorne, Julia Ward Howe and Margaret Fuller. She met Frederick Douglass and the family home served as a stop on the Underground Railroad.

Saturn rising in Virgo points toward her sense of responsibility and practicality, and Saturn rules her 5th house of creativity and 6th house of work and service. Louisa began teaching and writing at a young age and she supported family members throughout her life. Her writing gained acclaim around the time of her Saturn return in 1863 when she published Hospital Sketches, about her experiences nursing Civil War soldiers. Saturn also forms a tight grand trine with Mars in the 9th house of publication and Neptune in the 5th, igniting her imagination and giving her the ability to express it. Her work was commercially and critically successful.

Alcott’s Jupiter in Pisces conjunct the Descendant sextiled Mars in the 9th and Neptune in the 5th house, turning the grand trine into a kite pattern. It also forms another T-square with her Ascendant and Midheaven. The 7th can show business partners and it was a publisher who originally asked her to write a book for girls. She had mixed feelings (since the Moon in Aquarius in her 6th squares Mars), but accepted the offer. The autobiographical book became Little Women, which was praised for its strong, realistic female characters. Alcott’s Moon in Aquarius conjunct Uranus helped her as a freelance writer. The Moon’s trine to the Gemini Midheaven shows the popularity of her work and subject matter, and its sextile with Mercury in her 4th house points toward her facility for drawing on her past experiences.

But it’s ultimately Jupiter in Pisces that ensured her long-term success. Angularly placed within half a degree of the 7th house cusp, it gave her an unusual ability to reach a wide audience. The sextile to Neptune in the 5th provided a great well of inspiration. Jupiter is also the final dispositor of the chart (eventually ruling all others). Well over a century after her death, she continues to resonate with the public.

Alcott never married and contemporary interpretations of her life and writing suggest she may have been gay. Regardless of our retrospective opinion, Jupiter in the 7th house can show someone whose need for independence is too great to tie themselves down. Pluto conjunct the 8th could also indicate strong personal boundaries, especially as it squares Venus in Capricorn.

Louisa May Alcott and her father were both Sagittarians and shared the same birthday. She passed in 1888 at the age of 55, two days after her father died.