Who Wrote Little Women, When, and Where Is It Set?
Ten weeks of writing at Orchard House and a girls' book its author never wanted to write
Little Women: the key facts
| Fact | Answer |
|---|---|
| Author | Louisa May Alcott (1832 to 1888) |
| Part One published | 30 September 1868, Boston |
| Part Two published | April 1869 (called Good Wives in Britain) |
| Publisher | Roberts Brothers |
| Written at | Orchard House, Concord, Massachusetts |
| Set in | A small Massachusetts town, plus New York and Europe in Part Two |
| Time | From a Christmas during the Civil War through the following decade |
| Sequels | Little Men (1871), Jo's Boys (1886) |
Little Women was written by Louisa May Alcott, an American author from Massachusetts. Part One was published on 30 September 1868 by Roberts Brothers of Boston, and Part Two followed in April 1869.
It is set in a small New England town in Massachusetts during and after the American Civil War, beginning around the early 1860s.
Who was Louisa May Alcott?
Alcott was born in Pennsylvania in 1832 and grew up mostly in Concord, Massachusetts, the second of four daughters of the teacher and thinker Bronson Alcott. Her family was poor, and from her teens she worked as a seamstress, teacher and servant and wrote to earn money. During the Civil War she served as a nurse in Washington until she fell gravely ill, and her book about it, Hospital Sketches, was her first success.
She also wrote sensational thrillers under a false name, which paid well and which she rather enjoyed.
↑ Back to the topHow and when it was written
In 1868 her publisher, Thomas Niles of Roberts Brothers, asked her for a book for girls. Alcott was not keen, but Niles was also interested in publishing her father's work, and she agreed. She began in May 1868 and finished the first part in about ten weeks. She worked at the family home, Orchard House in Concord, writing about the only girls she said she really knew, her own sisters.
It sold so fast that Niles wanted a second part at once, and readers wrote in to demand that Jo marry Laurie. Alcott refused, and gave Jo a very different husband.
↑ Back to the topWhere and when is Little Women set?
The book never names its town, but it is clearly a small Massachusetts community like Concord, with snowy winters, a river for skating and a big house next door. The story opens at Christmas while Father is away with the Union army, in the early 1860s, and Part Two jumps three years ahead and covers about a decade. Jo spends time in New York, and Amy travels through France and Switzerland.
↑ Back to the topWhat is Good Wives?
Good Wives is the British title of Part Two, the half that covers the sisters' marriages, Beth's illness and Jo's years in New York. In Britain the two parts are still often sold as separate books, while American editions usually print them together as one novel called Little Women. Alcott continued the family's story in Little Men and Jo's Boys, set at the school Jo runs with her husband.
↑ Back to the topMore about Little Women
Books Like Little Women
Anne of Green GablesL. M. MontgomeryAnne of the IslandL. M. Montgomery
I Capture the CastleDodie Smith
A Tree Grows in BrooklynBetty Smith
Silas MarnerGeorge Eliot
Anne of InglesideL. M. Montgomery
Anne of AvonleaL. M. Montgomery
Wives and DaughtersElizabeth GaskellThis guide discusses the whole plot, including the ending.