Louisa May Alcott's novel brings to life vividly the life of New England during the nineteenth century. A life that was tranquil, secure, and productive. It is little wonder, for she drew on her own and on her family's experiences for her work. As one of four daughters growing up in Boston.

She counted as friends the children of Hawthorne and Emerson. The Alcott was only a modest cottage, but the girls made use of a neighboring barn to perform plays written by Louisa May.

She was educated at home, and became a school teacher in Boston. She saw her first story printed in a Boston newspaper at the age of twenty. Her first full-length book appeared two years later. Interrupting her career as a writer, she served as a nurse in a Washington hospital during the Civil War.

The thing that pleased her most about her writing, as she became more and more well known, was the fact that sales of her books helped to make life more comfortable and less of a daily struggle for her parents in their later years.

LITTLE WOMEN was published in 1869, and has gone on to become one of America's classics.