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This thesis is an exploration of how the literary public sphere generates sexual discourse and an effort to understand the link between sexology and imaginative literatures of the nineteenth century. Using Louisa May Alcott’s work as a case study, I consider the ramifications of authorial deception, arguing that deception was necessary in order to create sexual discourse in the periodical sphere. I also consider an American origin of sexology, rather than the typically invoked European medical origins, and with that intervention argue that imaginative literature and the queer possibilities it creates should be given more importance in the study of sexology and the history of sexuality more broadly.