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The Best of Louisa May Alcott: Little Women Little Men and Twenty-Four Short Stories
HARDBACK
800 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1994
1045 people are currently reading
1262 people want to read
About the author
Louisa May Alcott
4,046 books10.6k followersLouisa May Alcott was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet best known for writing the novel Little Women (1868) and its sequels Good Wives (1869), Little Men (1871) and Jo's Boys (1886). Raised in New England by her transcendentalist parents, Abigail May Alcott and Amos Bronson Alcott, she grew up among many well-known intellectuals of the day, including Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Alcott's family suffered from financial difficulties, and while she worked to help support the family from an early age, she also sought an outlet in writing. She began to receive critical success for her writing in the 1860s. Early in her career, she sometimes used pen names such as A.M. Barnard, under which she wrote lurid short stories and sensation novels for adults that focused on passion and revenge.
Published in 1868, Little Women is set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts, and is loosely based on Alcott's childhood experiences with her three sisters, Abigail May Alcott Nieriker, Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, and Anna Bronson Alcott Pratt. The novel was well-received at the time and is still popular today among both children and adults. It has been adapted for stage plays, films, and television many times.
Alcott was an abolitionist and a feminist and remained unmarried throughout her life. She also spent her life active in reform movements such as temperance and women's suffrage. She died from a stroke in Boston on March 6, 1888, just two days after her father's death.
Alcott's family suffered from financial difficulties, and while she worked to help support the family from an early age, she also sought an outlet in writing. She began to receive critical success for her writing in the 1860s. Early in her career, she sometimes used pen names such as A.M. Barnard, under which she wrote lurid short stories and sensation novels for adults that focused on passion and revenge.
Published in 1868, Little Women is set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts, and is loosely based on Alcott's childhood experiences with her three sisters, Abigail May Alcott Nieriker, Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, and Anna Bronson Alcott Pratt. The novel was well-received at the time and is still popular today among both children and adults. It has been adapted for stage plays, films, and television many times.
Alcott was an abolitionist and a feminist and remained unmarried throughout her life. She also spent her life active in reform movements such as temperance and women's suffrage. She died from a stroke in Boston on March 6, 1888, just two days after her father's death.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
September 27, 2011
Published in 1982, on the 150th anniversary of Louisa's blessed birth, this handsome collection includes Little Women, Little Men, and a "scrap-bag" of 24 short stories...highlighting the drawings of her earliest illustrators, and retaining all the old-fashioned spellings and punctuations. Just a joy.
April 21, 2011
Even though these books and stories are consider girlie and I am not a girlie, I liked them. That is all.
February 21, 2016
Extremely long but we'll worth the reading commitment.
January 18, 2025
A writer I’ve only come to know more of as of recently. After reading most her works I’ve come to realize her style did not stop from her iconic ‘Little Women’ her stories are told as if you were a child listening to your “Aunt Jo” speak of family stories that had been told many times before. Louisa May Alcott is a great source of inspiration and I recommend giving her works a try if you are wanting to find a delightfully charming story.
July 31, 2020
This great collection contains the best biography of Miss Alcott I have ever come across. It includes many excerpts from her own diary, and brings to light the answers to some things that had puzzled me about some of her stories. For example, I had always wondered why there are discrepancies in the names of characters in "Eight Cousins", and the sequel, "Rose in Bloom". In reality, Miss Alcott had never planned to write a sequel to "Eight Cousins", but was pressured into it by her publisher and the need for money. Having no copies, because she would have had to write the entire book over in longhand before sending it to the publisher, she could only rely on her memory. She whipped the sequel out in three weeks, working twelve hours at a stretch, neither eating or sleeping when at work. This also might explain also why there is so much poetry copied from others in "Rose in Bloom". "Under the Lilacs" is a sweet adventure story with a happy ending, and would make a beautiful Hallmark movie. I think it was written in haste, because I found many spelling errors. "Jack and Jill" starts out with a bad sledding accident, but I personally think it makes a better story than it would a movie. "Hospital Sketches" and several other stories are based on Miss Alcott's blood-curdling nursing adventures.
Miss Alcott paid off her father's debts and was petrified about incurring any more debt, whatever the cause. Her accomplishments included not only sewing for money and for charity, nursing soldiers during the Civil War, financially supporting her parents, her widowed sister and two nephews, sending her youngest sister to study art in Europe, (and raising her infant niece after that sister died) but writing some of the most beloved literature in existence. There were several male friends in her life, but she never quit working long enough to consider settling down as a wife.
This excellent collection includes some of the sensational tales alluded to in "Little Women", including a couple of horror stories and plays. Miss Alcott caught typhoid fever while nursing soldiers and was dosed with calomel, (mercuric chloride) the side effects of which caused her intense pain in her extremities for the rest of her life. She became very ill when her little niece Lulu was ten, and had Lulu sent to Switzerland to live with her father's mother. Miss Alcott died soon after.
All of Miss Alcott's stories are not sweet, wholesome tales for little girls and boys, but for the time, there were none better. She held strong abolitionist views, but the language of her day, especially regarding people in other countries, seems intolerant. Her "adult" stories can contain shockingly unexpected content.
This collection contains over 170 works by Miss Alcott, and I have relished nearly every one.
Miss Alcott paid off her father's debts and was petrified about incurring any more debt, whatever the cause. Her accomplishments included not only sewing for money and for charity, nursing soldiers during the Civil War, financially supporting her parents, her widowed sister and two nephews, sending her youngest sister to study art in Europe, (and raising her infant niece after that sister died) but writing some of the most beloved literature in existence. There were several male friends in her life, but she never quit working long enough to consider settling down as a wife.
This excellent collection includes some of the sensational tales alluded to in "Little Women", including a couple of horror stories and plays. Miss Alcott caught typhoid fever while nursing soldiers and was dosed with calomel, (mercuric chloride) the side effects of which caused her intense pain in her extremities for the rest of her life. She became very ill when her little niece Lulu was ten, and had Lulu sent to Switzerland to live with her father's mother. Miss Alcott died soon after.
All of Miss Alcott's stories are not sweet, wholesome tales for little girls and boys, but for the time, there were none better. She held strong abolitionist views, but the language of her day, especially regarding people in other countries, seems intolerant. Her "adult" stories can contain shockingly unexpected content.
This collection contains over 170 works by Miss Alcott, and I have relished nearly every one.
June 14, 2017
Not as popular as she should be.
I started reading Little Women as a young child, and have gone on to read a large portion of LM Allcott's works. I have always very much enjoyed them, and felt encouraged and strengthened by them. They aren't popular today- no wizards, no violence- but they remind me of much that was good in the way my parents raised the four of us. I am not an active church goer or Christian, but I don't believe one needs to be to try to do a little good here and there. I have been, and am still, ill often and these books remind me to try to be patient and not take my frustrations on others. I love these books and stories, and cannot thank Miss Alcott enough for writing them.
I started reading Little Women as a young child, and have gone on to read a large portion of LM Allcott's works. I have always very much enjoyed them, and felt encouraged and strengthened by them. They aren't popular today- no wizards, no violence- but they remind me of much that was good in the way my parents raised the four of us. I am not an active church goer or Christian, but I don't believe one needs to be to try to do a little good here and there. I have been, and am still, ill often and these books remind me to try to be patient and not take my frustrations on others. I love these books and stories, and cannot thank Miss Alcott enough for writing them.
August 25, 2020
19. yüzyıl edebiyatında çalışan kadın kahramanlar konulu bir yazı yazmaya Louisa May Alcott’un aynı adlı romanından uyarlanan Küçük Kadınlar filmini izledikten sonra karar vermiştim. Yazı için araştırma yaparken bu romana rastladım. Pek az bilinen, yarı otobiyografik ama çok önemli bir roman. Hizmetçilik, terzilik, aktristlik vs. pek çok işe girip çıkan ve nihayetinde çalışan kadınlarla dayanışma örgütleyen, Amerikan iç savaşı döneminde yazılmış olmasına rağmen en yakın arkadaşı siyah bir aşçı olan bir kadının hikayesi.
Read
January 9, 2021i think i read this when i was about 12 or so, probably an edition from 1940 something that my mother had...i don't even know. i read all of them and loved them. i wish she could have seen the new productions of these stories that PBS has done, they're wonderful illustrations of what women's lives really are.
February 2, 2008
These books are classics. I loved them both, but I would probably give Little Men 4 stars.
Want to read
January 13, 2011Jo's Boys by Louisa May Alcott (1925)
Want to read
November 21, 2009Little Men by Louisa May Alcott (1933)
May 2, 2010
Read as a Small Girl and Reread As An Adult. Something For Everyone!
January 13, 2011
The included short stories were quite fun to read. They were all good in their own little way, teaching small bits of moral sense in their own way.
January 15, 2013
Very impressed, was sure i wasn't going to enjoy, boy was i wrong! SO many i wanted not to end but no, just continued onto another story that turned out just as fun as the previous.
January 13, 2015
This isn't the exact one I have at home, but it's the closest one I could find. I bought the one I have with babysitting money in 1982. It's beautiful! Red (faux leather), gilded edged pages....
December 30, 2015
LMA was one of my formative fiction instructors and I would die for her. She wrote thoughtful, engaging stories that made me (I hope) more thoughtful and engaging.
March 18, 2024
This was the first work of literature I ever read. It will always hold a special place in my heart.
July 11, 2018
It's nice to have all of these together. Louisa may Alcott was my favorite author when I was a child. I must say that her writing seems a little simplistic to me now.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 19, 2018
Old world charm
No one is expected to and no one will read this in one session. Use it as a time filler far back on the burner.
No one is expected to and no one will read this in one session. Use it as a time filler far back on the burner.
November 28, 2018
Really good reads! Took a long while, but was refreshing studying Louisa's works all together in one place!
Want to read
January 7, 2021Contains Flower Fables written in 1854;
Read
January 6, 2024haha... lol i did not read every single work of Louisa May Alcott (this is meant to be in place of An Old Fashioned Christmas and Kate's Choice)
April 2, 2024
5🌟 for Little Women and Good Wives and 3🌟 for Little Men. It is so lovely to live in the heads of the March girls.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews