Included are selections from the journals of Louisa and Bronson Alcott, never-before published correspondence with Thomas Niles, Alcott s childhood recollections, and a chapter from Madeleine.

This Norton Critical Edition of Louisa May Alcott's masterwork provides an authoritative text, based on the first edition (1868-69) and accompanied by textual variants and detailed explanatory annotations.

"Backgrounds and Contexts" brings readers a weahb of biographical, autobiographical, and literaU materials related to the origins of Little Women. Included are selections from the journals of Louisa and Bronson Alcott, never-before published correspondence with Thomas Niles, Alcott s childhood recollections, and a chapter from Madeleine B. Stem's Louisa May Alcott: A BiograFh. Among the literary coatexts for Little mteu are precursors to the novel along with related works by John Bunyan, Johann Wolfgang yon Goethe,and Maria Edgeworth.

"Criticism" provides readers with a clear understanding of the critical history of Little Women since its publication. Twenty nineteenth-century reviews suggest the novel's initial reception. A wide range of recent responses to Little Pvbme is presented in essays by Elizabeth Vincent, Anne Dalke, Angela M, Estes and Kathleen Margaret gant, Catharine R. Stimpson, Elizabeth Keyser,Richard H. Brodhead, and Barbara Sicherman.

A ChronoloD of Alcott's life and work and a Selected Bibliography are also included.

List of Illustrations

Preface

Abbreviations

The Text of Little Women

 Little Women, Part First

 Little Women, Part Second

 A Note on the Text

 Textual Variants

Backgrounds and Contexts

 JOURNALS, CORRESPONDENCE, AND BIOGRAPHY

 Louisa May Alcott * Journals

 Bronson Alcott·Journals

 Louisa May Alcott, Thomas Niles, and Bronson Alcott

 Correspondence on Little Women

 Louisa M. Alcott·Recollections of My Childhood

 Madeleine B. Stern·from Louisa May Alcott:

 A Biography

 LITERARY CONTEXTS FOR LITTLE WOMEN

 John Bunyan·From The Pilgrim's Progress

 [The Palace Beautiful]

 [The Valley of Humiliation and Apollyon]

 [The Valley of the Shadow of Death]

 [Vanity Fair]

 [Green Meadows]

 [The Author's Way of Sending Forth His Second

 Part of the Pilgrim]

 [Great-heart]

 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe·From Wilhelm Meister's

 Apprenticeship

 [Mignon's Song]

 Maria Edgeworth·The Purple Jar

 "Jo" [Louisa May Alcott] and "Meg" [Anna B. Alcott

 Pratt]·Norna; or, The Witch's Curse

 L. M. A. [Louisa May Alcott]·The Masked Marriage

 M. L. A. [Louisa May Alcott]·The Sisters' Trial

 [Louisa May Alcott]·A Modern Cinderella: or, The

 Little Old Shoe

 L. M. Alcott·Tilly's Christmas

 Cousin Tribulation [Louisa May Alcott]·Merry's

 Monthly Chat with His Friends

Criticism

 NINETEENTH-CENTURY REVIEWS

 From The Nation

 From The Albany Evening Journal

 From The Youth's Companion

 From the American Literary Gazette and Publisher's

 Circular

 From Arthur's Illustrated Home Magazine

 From The Lady's Friend

 From The Ladies' Repository

 From Godey's Lady's Book

 From The Galaxy

 From The Spectator

 From The Commonwealth

 From The National Anti-Slavery Standard

 From The Nation

 From the Hartford Courant

 From Catholic World

 From Putnam's Magazine

 From The Galaxy

 From The Ladies' Repository

 From Harper's New Monthly Magazine

 From the London Graphic

 MODERN CRITICAL VIEWS

 Elizabeth Vincent·Subversive Miss Alcott

 Anne Dalke·"The House-Band": The Education of

 Men in Little Women

 Angela M. Estes and Kathleen Margaret Lant ·

 Dismembering the Text: The Horror of Louisa May

 Alcott's Little Women

 Catharine R. Stimpson·Reading for Love: Canons,

 Paracanons, and Whistling Jo March

 Elizabeth Keyser·"Portrait(s) of the Artist":

 Little Women

 Richard H. Brodhead·Starting Out in the 1860s:

 Alcott, Authorship, and the Postbellum Literary

 Field

 Barbara Sicherman·Reading Little Women: The Many

 Lives of a Text

Louisa May Alcott: A Chronology

Selected Bibliography