Louisa May Alcott, Little Women: Or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy

Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Report an Error

Louisa May Alcott wrote

Little Women

in 1868, at the request of Thomas Niles of the Roberts Brothers' publishing house. Niles had repeatedly asked Alcott to write a book for girls until, pressed by the financial needs that constantly beset the Alcott family, she was finally convinced to undertake the project. Alcott wrote energetically and managed to complete the first volume of

Little Women

in about two months. Published in October of 1868, this first volume became an immediate commercial success, a fact that led Roberts Brothers to ask for a sequel. Alcott acquiesced and submitted the second volume (entitled

Good Wives

) for publication by the end of the year. The combined two volumes appeared in April 1869 and sold the extraordinary number of 30,000 copies in a period of only fourteen…

3310 words

Citation: Maragou, Helena. "Little Women: Or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 November 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3890, accessed 19 March 2024.]

3890 Little Women: Or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.