Little Women is a novel published in 1868 and written by American author Louisa May Alcott. The story concerns the lives and loves of four sisters growing up during the American Civil War. It was based on Alcotts own experiences as a child in Concord, Massachusetts with her three sisters, Anna, May, and Elizabeth. Little Women is the story of The Marches, a family used to hard toil and suffering. Although Father March is away with the union armies, the sisters Meg, Jo, Amy and Beth keep in high spirits with their mother, affectionately named Marmee.

Their friendly gift of a Christmas holiday breakfast to a neighbouring family is an act of generosity rewarded with wealthy Mr. Laurences gift of a surprise Christmas feast. However, despite their efforts to be good, the girls show faults: the pretty Meg becomes discontented with the children she teaches; boyish Jo loses her temper regularly; while the golden-haired schoolgirl Amy is inclined towards affectation. However, Beth, who keeps the house is always kind and gentle. After certain happy times winning over the Laurences, dark times arrive as Marmee finds out about her husbands illness. Worse is to come as Beth contracts scarlet fever in her Samaritan efforts for a sick neighbour and becomes more or lean invalid. The novel tells of their progreinto young womanhood with the additional strains of romance, Beths terminal illness, the pressures of marriage and the outside world. This is the story of their growing maturity and wisdom and the search for the contentedneof family life.

It was written in 1867 and is a fictionalised biography of Alcott and her sisters. It has become a much loved classic tale and, while some of its issues seem outdated, many of the trials of the sisters are all too relevant today as evidenced by its continued following.