Book description
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott is a classic novel loved by
adults and children alike.
Come laugh and cry with the March family.
Meg - the sweet-tempered one. Jo - the smart one. Beth - the shy
one. Amy - the sassy one.
Together they're the March sisters. Their father is away at war and
times are difficult, but the bond between the sisters is strong. The
family may not have much money, but that doesn't stop them from
creating their own fun and forming a secret society. Through sisterly
squabbles, happy times and sad, their four lives follow very different
paths, and they discover that growing up is sometimes very hard to do...
***PLUS a behind-the-scenes journey, including an author profile, a
guide to who's who, activities and more...***
Louisa May Alcott wrote her first novel, The Inheritance, at
age seventeen, but it went unpublished for nearly 150 years until
1997, after two researchers (Joel Myerson and Daniel Shealy) stumbled
across the handwritten manuscript in the Houghton Library at Harvard
University. Of course, Ms. Alcott is best known for a different novel,
Little Women, which she wrote in two parts. The first volume,
alternately titled Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, was published in 1868, and
the second volume, Good Wives, was published in 1869. Like Jo in
Little Women, Louisa also wrote many "blood and
thunder" tales, which were published in popular periodicals of
the day. She did not openly claim authorship for many of these Gothic
thriller stories, however: for some, she used the pseudonym, "A.
M. Barnard"; for others, she chose to remain completely anonymous.
Louisa May Alcott (1832-88) was brought up in Pennsylvania, USA.
She turned to writing in order to supplement the family income and had
many short stories published in magazines and newspapers. Then, in
1862, during the height of the American Civil War, Louisa went to
Georgetown to work as a nurse, but she contracted typhoid. Out of her
experiences she wrote Hospital Sketches (1864) which won wide
acclaim, followed by an adult novel, Moods.
She was reluctant to write a children's book but then realized that
in herself and her three sisters she had the perfect models. The
result was Little Women (1868) which became the earliest
American children's novel to become a classic.
