Complete Little Women: Little Women, Good Wives, Little Men, Jo's Boys

Louisa May Alcott ended Little Women (1868) with the words &quote;So the curtain falls upon Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. Whether it ever rises again, depends upon the reception given the first act of the domestic drama called Little Women.&quote; It was an immediate commercial and critical success, and readers demanded to know more about the characters. Alcott quickly completed a second volume, Good Wives (1869), and later Little Men (1871)and Jo's Boys (1886). The novels follow the lives of the four March sisters-Meg, Beth, Jo and Amy, each with a very different character. It has been argued that within Little Women one finds the first vision of the &quote;All-American girl&quote; and that her multiple aspects are embodied in the differing March sisters. But whatever the reason, generations of readers have loved these novels since they were first published.