Little Women
Louisa May Alcott shares the innocence of girlhood in this classic coming of age story about four sisters--Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. In picturesque nineteenth-century New England, tomboyish Jo, beautiful Meg, fragile Beth, and romantic Amy are responsible for keeping a home while their father is off to war. At the same time, they must come to terms with their individual personalities--and make the transition from girlhood to womanhood. It can all be quite a challenge. But the March sisters, however different, are nurtured by their wise and beloved Marmee, bound by their love for each other and the feminine strength they share. Readers of all ages have fallen instantly in love with these Little Women. Their story transcends time--making this novel endure as a classic piece of American literature that has captivated generations of readers with their charm, innocence, and wistful insights. This Signet Classics edition contains Little Women in its entirety, including Parts I and II. With an Introduction by Regina Barecca
and an Afterword by Susan Straight
and an Afterword by Susan Straight
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Community Reviews
I love this story, but I didn't always. I seem to recall reading it for the first time around 10 or 11 years of age and coming up a particular scene I didn't like...when Jo tells Laurie she can't marry him. Her refusal to accept his proposal seemed like a mistake to me when I first read it, and so I flung the book across the room and didn't touch it again for a few days. I eventually calmed down and returned to the scene on the page to see the story resolved beautifully just as Louisa May Alcott imagined it.
After having watched the film, I was surprised how much was not only missed, but also changed. This is a lovely book of four sisters coming of age.
What we now call Little Women (400 pages) was originally “Little Women” (200 pages) and “Good Wives” (200 pages).
Little Women, Part 1, ends with Meg’s engagement and nothing very memorable happens except: Amy gets in trouble for pickled limes, there is a terrible fight between Amy and Jo, there is a bad run of scarlet fever, and Meg gets engaged. The only love story is Meg’s and it is not very moving.
Everything you remember being great about the story of the March girls actually happens in Part 2, Good Wives, when all the women are grown up. Meg is suffering from being a new mother (there are blogs for that now, Meg!), Beth is doing the thing for which Beth is famous, and Jo and Amy are having exciting artistic pursuits and love stories. It's missing a little depth but it's a wonderful and moving story as well as highly entertaining.
Little Women, Part 1, ends with Meg’s engagement and nothing very memorable happens except: Amy gets in trouble for pickled limes, there is a terrible fight between Amy and Jo, there is a bad run of scarlet fever, and Meg gets engaged. The only love story is Meg’s and it is not very moving.
Everything you remember being great about the story of the March girls actually happens in Part 2, Good Wives, when all the women are grown up. Meg is suffering from being a new mother (there are blogs for that now, Meg!), Beth is doing the thing for which Beth is famous, and Jo and Amy are having exciting artistic pursuits and love stories. It's missing a little depth but it's a wonderful and moving story as well as highly entertaining.
Um this wasnt bad kinda boring sometimes, each chapter in the books has its own little lesson included, and because the themes are universal it holds up. Humility, hard work, kindness, etc. it seems to encapsulate the ideals of the American spirit and dream, but it ignores so much. The father is away at war but the context of the Civil War is never explored. The girls are described as poor but have at least one servant and are able to come up from hard work but often as much from association with richer acquaintances. Woven through out the book are Christian lessons that felt like a sermon sometimes and meant nothing to me. Like I said not bad but I'm not white or Christian so just kind of meh
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