 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (September 2021) |
 First volume of Little Women (1868) | |
| Author | Louisa May Alcott |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Series | Little Women |
| Genre | Coming of age Bildungsroman |
| Publisher | Roberts Brothers |
Publication date | 1868 (1st volume) 1869 (2nd volume) |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 759 |
| Followed by | Little Men |
Little Women is a coming-of-age novel written by American novelist Louisa May Alcott, originally published in two volumes, in 1868 and 1869.[1][2] The story follows the lives of the four March sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy—and details their passage from childhood to womanhood. Loosely based on the lives of the author and her three sisters,[3][4]: 202 it is classified as an autobiographical or semi-autobiographical novel.[5][6]: 12
Little Women was an immediate commercial and critical success, and readers were eager for more about the characters. Alcott quickly completed a second volume (titled Good Wives in the United Kingdom, though the name originated with the publisher and not Alcott). It was also met with success. The two volumes were issued in 1880 as a single novel titled Little Women. Alcott subsequently wrote two sequels to her popular work, both also featuring the March sisters: Little Men (1871) and Jo's Boys (1886).
The novel has been said to address three major themes: "domesticity, work, and true love, all of them interdependent and each necessary to the achievement of its heroine's individual identity."[7]: 200 According to Sarah Elbert, Alcott created a new form of literature, one that took elements from romantic children's fiction and combined it with others from sentimental novels, resulting in a totally new genre. Elbert argues that within Little Women can be found the first vision of the "All-American girl" and that her various aspects are embodied in the differing March sisters.[7]: 199
The book has been translated into numerous languages, and frequently adapted for stage and screen.
- ^ Longest, David (1998). Little Women of Orchard House: A Full-length Play. Dramatic Publishing. p. 115. ISBN 0-87129-857-0.
- ^ Sparknotes: literature. Spark Educational Publishing. 2004. p. 465. ISBN 1-4114-0026-7.
- ^ Alberghene, Janice (1999). "Autobiography and the Boundaries of Interpretation on Reading Little Women and the Living is Easy". In Alberghene, Janice M.; Clark, Beverly Lyon (eds.). Little Women and the Feminist Imagination: Criticism, Controversy, Personal Essays. Psychology Press. p. 355. ISBN 0-8153-2049-3.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Cheeverwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Cullen Sizer, Lyde (2000). The Political Work of Northern Women Writers and the Civil War, 1850–1872. Univ of North Carolina Press. p. 45. ISBN 0-8078-6098-0.
- ^ Reisen, Harriet (2010). Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-312-65887-8.
- ^ a b Elbert, Sarah (1987). A Hunger for Home: Louisa May Alcott's Place in American Culture. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0-8135-1199-2.