Little Women (Annotated)

📖 The Scoop

Little Women By Louisa May Alcott

Special Features Of Book

◆Short Biography of Louisa May Alcott

◆Literary Analysis Of Little Women

Alcott prefaces Little Women with an excerpt from John Bunyan's seventeenth-century work The Pilgrim's Progress, an allegorical novel about leading a Christian life. Alcott's story begins with the four March girls--Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy--sitting in their living room, lamenting their poverty. The girls decide that they will each buy themselves a present in order to brighten their Christmas. Soon, however, they change their minds and decide that instead of buying presents for themselves, they will buy presents for their mother, Marmee. Marmee comes home with a letter from Mr. March, the girls' father, who is serving as a Union chaplain in the Civil War. The letter inspires the girls to bear their burdens more cheerfully and not to complain about their poverty...

Louisa May Alcott was born on November 29, 1832 in Germantown, Pennsylvania. She and her three sisters Anna, Elizabeth and [Abba] May grew up mainly with their father, the teacher and philosopher A. Bronson Alcott, and were raised in Christianity practically by their mother Abigail May. Louisa spent her childhood in Boston and Concord, Massachusetts.

Writing was an early passion for Louisa. She had a rich imagination and her stories often became the basis of melodramas that she and her sisters performed for their friends.

Little Women was a phenomenal success practically overnight, mainly due to his timeless story about America's first youth heroine "Jo March", who instead of the idealized stereotype of her own individuality acted as a faulty and free-thinking person of Female Perfection then through to children's literature. In total, Louisa published more than 30 books and collections of stories and poems.

Genre: Fiction / Coming of Age (fancy, right?)