Follows the four March sisters - pretty Meg, tomboy Jo, shy Beth and vain Amy - as they grow and mature into four distinctive little women. Louisa May Alcott was born in Pennsylvania and grew up in Boston and Concord, Massachusetts, the setting for Little Women.
Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy have grown up together in Orchard House with their friend Laurie next door, and now it's time for them to go out and find their places in the big wide world, to do the great and marvellous things they've dreamed of and discover their 'castles in the air'.
Although the publication of Little Women in 1868 earned Louisa May Alcott tremendous popularity, for a long time she was thought of as a writer of children's stories and considered--at best--a minor figure in the American literary canon. Now, at the end of the twentieth century, Alcott's vast body of work is being celebrated alongside the greatest American writers, and this collection shows why. The Portable Louisa May Alcott samples the entire spectrum of Alcott's work: her novels, novellas, children's stories, sensationalist fiction, gothic tales, essays, letters, and journals. Presenting her more daring works, such as Moods and Behind a Mask (both reprinted in their entirety), alongside the familiar heroines of Little Women, this singular collection offers readers a rich and wide-ranging portrait of this talented, prolific, and influential writer.
HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.
Little Men is the delightful unofficial sequel to Louisa May Alcott''s Little Women, reprising the much-cherished characters of the March family and friends, as well as some unforgettable new ones.
The warm-hearted and fiesty Jo March returns (now as Jo Bhaer) and, together with husband Friedrich and the inheritance of an estate from Aunt March, opens Plumfield Estate, an unconventional school based on individuality and diversity. Jo''s own boys, a number of rescued orphans, and her nieces are all encouraged to be kind, helpful, and self-sufficient, tending their own gardens and running their own businesses. Fun and learning go hand in hand, and pillow fights are even permitted on Saturdays.
Personal relationships are key to the school, as well as to the novel, and the lovable characters get up to plenty of scrapes and adventures, but in the end, even the troublesome among them find redemption in the love and support of the extended March family.
Meg is the eldest and on the brink of love. Then there's tomboy Jo who longs to be a writer. Sweet-natured Beth always puts others first, and finally there's Amy, the youngest and most precocious. Together they are the March sisters. Even though times are tough, their infectious sense of fun sweeps everyone up in their adventures.
One of five beloved Christmas classics A Merry Christmas collects the treasured holiday tales of Louisa May Alcott, from the dearly familiar Yuletide benevolence of Marmee and her 'little women' to the timeless 'What Love Can Do,' wherein the residents of a boarding house come together to make a lovely Christmas for two poor girls. Wildly popular at the time of their publication-'readers deluged Alcott with letters demanding sequels-'and drawing on Alcott's family and experiences in the abolitionist and women's suffrage movements, these stories have the authentic texture and detail of Christmas in nineteenth-century America, while their emphasis on generosity and charity make them timeless embodiments of the Christmas spirit.
Penguin Christmas Classics Give the gift of literature this Christmas.
Penguin Christmas Classics honor the power of literature to keep on giving through the ages. The five volumes in the series are not only our most beloved Christmas tales, they also have given us much of what we love about the holiday itself. A Christmas Carol revived in Victorian England such Christmas hallmarks as the Christmas tree, holiday cards, and caroling. The Yuletide yarns of Anthony Trollope popularized throughout the British Empire and around the world the trappings of Christmas in London. The holiday tales of Louisa May Alcott shaped the ideal of an American Christmas. The Night Before Christmas brought forth some of our earliest Christmas traditions as passed down through folk tales. And The Nutcracker inspired the most famous ballet in history, one seen by millions in the twilight of every year.
Collect all five Penguin Christmas Classics:
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens Christmas at Thompson Hall: And Other Christmas Stories by Anthony Trollope A Merry Christmas: And Other Christmas Stories by Louisa May Alcott The Night Before Christmas by Nikolai Gogol The Nutcracker by E. T. A. Hoffmann
