About the author
Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist, poet, and abolitionist raised in a circle of New England reformers and transcendentalists. Little Women drew on her family life while refusing to make work, money, artistic ambition, and female independence secondary to marriage.
The novel follows them through a year and then through the years — theatricals in the parlor, scarlet fever, first jobs, first loves, and the friendship with Laurie, the rich boy next door who becomes part of the family. Alcott wrote from her own life, and the domestic detail gives the book its warmth: these are people who enjoy one another.
Where to start
Start with Little Women. Four March sisters grow up through poverty, work, love, and loss in Civil War-era New England.
