Louisa May Alcott Books

Easton Press Louisa May Alcott books:
Little Women - 1976
Little Men - 1988
Jo's Boys

Franklin Library Louisa May Alcott books:
Little Women - World's Best Loved Books - 1980
Little Women - 100 Greatest Masterpieces of American Literature - 1980

 

 

Author Louisa May Alcott biography
Louisa May Alcott (1832-88), was an American author, born in Germantown, Pa. Alcott was raised in Boston, Mass., and was tutored by the American writers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. While serving as a nurse during the Civil War Louisa May Alcott wrote letters to her family which were later published as Hospital Sketches (1854). Her most famous works, Little Women (1868), an autobiographical novel of Louisa May Alcott's childhood, and its sequel, Little Men (1871), soon came to be regarded as children's classics. The deep sense of family loyalty and intimacy contained in these works assures her prominent position among authors of children's novels.

 

Little Women
Generations of readers young and old, male and female, have fallen in love with the March sisters of Louisa May Alcott’s most popular and enduring novel, Little Women. Here are talented tomboy and author-to-be Jo, tragically frail Beth, beautiful Meg, and romantic, spoiled Amy, united in their devotion to each other and their struggles to survive in New England during the Civil War.
It is no secret that Alcott based Little Women on her own early life. While her father, the freethinking reformer and abolitionist Bronson Alcott, hobnobbed with such eminent male authors as Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne, Louisa supported herself and her sisters with "woman’s work,” including sewing, doing laundry, and acting as a domestic servant. But she soon discovered she could make more money writing. Little Women brought her lasting fame and fortune, and far from being the "girl’s book” her publisher requested, it explores such timeless themes as love and death, war and peace, the conflict between personal ambition and family responsibilities, and the clash of cultures between Europe and America.


Little Men
With two sons of her own, and twelve rescued orphan boys filling the informal school at Plumfield, Jo March now Jo Bhaer couldn't be happier. But despite the warm and affectionate help of the whole March family, boys have a habit of getting into scrapes, and there are plenty of troubles and adventures in store.


Jo's Boys
Beginning ten years after Little Men, Jo’s Boys revisits Plumfield, the New England school still presided over by Jo and her husband, Professor Bhaer. Jo remains at the center of the tale, surrounded by her boys including rebellious Dan, sailor Emil, and promising musician Nat as they experience shipwreck and storm, disappointment and even murder.