Little Women: Top Novelist Focus
About this ebook
CHAPTER ONE
PLAYING PILGRIMS
CHAPTER TWO
A MERRY CHRISTMAS
CHAPTER THREE
THE LAURENCE BOY
CHAPTER FOUR
BURDENS
CHAPTER FIVE
BEING NEIGHBORLY
CHAPTER SIX
BETH FINDS THE PALACE BEAUTIFUL
CHAPTER SEVEN
AMY'S VALLEY OF HUMILIATION
CHAPTER EIGHT
JO MEETS APOLLYON
CHAPTER NINE
MEG GOES TO VANITY FAIR
CHAPTER TEN
THE P.C. AND P.O.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
EXPERIMENTS
CHAPTER TWELVE
CAMP LAURENCE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CASTLES IN THE AIR
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SECRETS
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A TELEGRAM
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
LETTERS
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
LITTLE FAITHFUL
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
DARK DAYS
CHAPTER NINETEEN
AMY'S WILL
CHAPTER TWENTY
CONFIDENTIAL
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LAURIE MAKES MISCHIEF, AND JO MAKES PEACE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
PLEASANT MEADOWS
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
AUNT MARCH SETTLES THE QUESTION
LITTLE WOMEN PART 2
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
GOSSIP
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
THE FIRST WEDDING
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
ARTISTIC ATTEMPTS
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
LITERARY LESSONS
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
DOMESTIC EXPERIENCES
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CALLS
CHAPTER THIRTY
CONSEQUENCES
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
OUR FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
TENDER TROUBLES
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
JO'S JOURNAL
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
FRIEND
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
HEARTACHE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
BETH'S SECRET
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
NEW IMPRESSIONS
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
ON THE SHELF
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
LAZY LAURENCE
CHAPTER FORTY
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
LEARNING TO FORGET
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
ALL ALONE
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
SURPRISES
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
MY LORD AND LADY
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
DAISY AND DEMI
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
UNDER THE UMBRELLA
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
HARVEST TIME
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About the author
Louisa May Alcott (November 29, 1832 – March 6, 1888) was an American novelist and poet best known as the author of the novel Little Women (1868) and its sequels Little Men (1871) and Jo's Boys (1886). Raised by her transcendentalist parents, Abigail May and Amos Bronson Alcott in New England, she grew up among many of the well-known intellectuals of the day such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau.
Nevertheless, her family suffered severe financial difficulties and Alcott worked to help support the family from an early age. She began to receive critical success for her writing in the 1860s. Early in her career, she sometimes used the pen name A. M. Barnard and under it wrote novels for young adults.
Published in 1868, Little Women is set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts and is loosely based on Alcott's childhood experiences with her three sisters. The novel was very well received and is still a popular children's novel today, filmed several times. Alcott was an abolitionist and a feminist and remained unmarried throughout her life. She died in Boston on March 6, 1888. Henry James called her "The novelist of children... the Thackeray, the Trollope, of the nursery and the schoolroom."
As an adult, Alcott was an abolitionist and a feminist. In 1860, Alcott began writing for the Atlantic Monthly. When the American Civil War broke out, she served as a nurse in the Union Hospital at Georgetown, D.C., for six weeks in 1862–1863. She intended to serve three months as a nurse, but halfway through she contracted typhoid and became deathly ill, though she eventually recovered. Her letters home – revised and published in the Commonwealth and collected as Hospital Sketches (1863, republished with additions in 1869) – brought her first critical recognition for her observations and humor. It was originally written for the Boston anti-slavery paper The Commonwealth. She wrote about the mismanagement of hospitals and the indifference and callousness of some of the surgeons she encountered. Her main character, Tribulation Periwinkle, showed a passage from innocence to maturity and is a "serious and eloquent witness". Her novel Moods (1864), based on her own experience, was also promising.
In the mid-1860s, Alcott wrote passionate, fiery novels and sensational stories under the nom de plume A. M. Barnard. Among these are A Long Fatal Love Chase and Pauline's Passion and Punishment. Her protagonists for these tales are willful and relentless in their pursuit of their own aims, which often include revenge on those who have humiliated or thwarted them. She also produced wholesome stories for children, and after their positive reception, she did not generally return to creating works for adults. Adult-oriented exceptions include the anonymous novelette A Modern Mephistopheles (1875), which attracted suspicion that it was written by Julian Hawthorne; and the semi-autobiographical tale Work (1873).
Alcott became even more successful with the first part of Little Women: or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy (1868), a semi-autobiographical account of her childhood with her sisters in Concord, Massachusetts, published by the Roberts Brothers. Part two, or Part Second, also known as Good Wives (1869), followed the March sisters into adulthood and marriage. Little Men (1871) detailed Jo's life at the Plumfield School that she founded with her husband Professor Bhaer at the conclusion of Part Two of Little Women. Jo's Boys (1886) completed the "March Family Saga".
In Little Women, Alcott based her heroine "Jo" on herself. But whereas Jo marries at the end of the story, Alcott remained single throughout her life. She explained her "spinsterhood" in an interview with Louise Chandler Moulton, "I am more than half-persuaded that I am a man's soul put by some freak of nature into a woman's body ...
