What first made Louisa May Alcott a literary celebrity was not Little Women but the successive versions of Hospital Sketches. Analysis of these versions, paired with attention to their production and reception, shows how Alcott finds her first real success with literary nonfiction—dark and realistic but humorous travel sketches that function as social critiques and voyeuristic peeks into unfamiliar scenes. To illustrate these claims, this essay draws on Sharon Marcus’ dynamic theory of celebrity, which emphasizes how audiences, media agents, and artists work together to create celebrity. Alcott played a role in the formation of her celebrity by choosing subject matter that would appeal to readers and incorporating the advice of those who encouraged her. Without those encouraging media agents who helped manufacture Alcott as a celebrity writer, it is unlikely that Hospital Sketches would have had the success it did. Readers and fans were also indispensable to the Hospital Sketches sensation and the emergence of Alcott as a celebrity author. Although Little Women would later make her a superstar, Hospital Sketches was the book that made her a star, and it provided a model for future writers yearning for literary celebrity, including Mark Twain.