Generations of readers young and old, male and female, have
fallen in love with the March sisters of Louisa May
Alcott’s most popular and enduring novel, Little
Women. Here are talented tomboy and author-to-be Jo,
tragically frail Beth, beautiful Meg, and romantic, spoiled
Amy, united in their devotion to each other and their
struggles to survive in New England during the Civil War.
It is no secret that Alcott based Little
Women on her own early life. While her father, the
freethinking reformer and abolitionist Bronson Alcott,
hobnobbed with such eminent male authors as Emerson,
Thoreau, and Hawthorne, Louisa supported herself and her
sisters with “woman’s work,” including sewing, doing
laundry, and acting as a domestic servant. But she soon
discovered she could make more money writing. Little
Women brought her lasting fame and fortune, and far from
being the “girl’s book” her publisher requested, it explores
such timeless themes as love and death, war and peace, the
conflict between personal ambition and family
responsibilities, and the clash of cultures between Europe
and America.