The novel Little Women (1868–1869), by Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888), tells the story of Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March, four sisters in a New England family whose father is serving as a chaplain for the Union during the Civil War. The first volume follows the family through the events of a single year; in the second volume, the story commences three years later, as the sisters transition into adulthood and come to terms with their ambitions and responsibilities.

TEXTUAL HISTORY

Louisa May Alcott, the second daughter of the educator and transcendentalist Amos Bronson Alcott and Abba May Alcott, was editing a children's magazine, Merry's Museum, when she was asked in September 1867 by Thomas Niles, an editor at the Boston publishing house Roberts Brothers, to write a novel for girls that might approximate some of the success experienced by the...