Louisa May Alcott’s memory will be resurrected by an NIU honorary society.

Mary Shelden, assistant editor of the “Writings Of Henry D. Thoreau” in Founders Memorial Library, will be the secretary of the newly instated Louisa May Alcott Society.

Alcott is best known for her 1868 novel, “Little Women.”

The society feels Alcott has been overlooked.

“It’s surprising that Alcott, who is not merely famous, but truly an institution in American letters, has not yet had a society devoted to scholarship about her life and works,” Shelden said. “Catharine Maria Sedgwick and Harriet Beecher Stowe have author societies, so do canonical authors like Thoreau, Emerson and Cooper, who are all deserving, but it’s high time to give Alcott her due.”

The society will conduct presentations at scholarly conferences and have affiliation with scholarly organizations such as the American Literature Association, the Society for the Study of American Women Writers and the Modern Language Association.

“The presentations at the conferences will entail vigorous discussions about current research on Alcott’s life and works,” Shelden said.

Shelden earned her doctorate in English in 2003 from NIU and included “Little Women” in her dissertation because she was writing about cross-dressing in 19th-century American novels.

Shelden feels Alcott isn’t taken seriously enough, despite outselling works like “Moby Dick” and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”

Joel Myerson of the University of Southern California will serve as the president, and Sandy Petrulionis of Penn State -Altoona will server as the society’s treasurer.

“I am thrilled to be meeting and interacting with some of the most prominent scholars of Alcott studies and of American literature more generally,” Shelden said.