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Plot
Part 1.

Little Women follows the lives of the four March sisters, from oldest to youngest: Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. The start of the story is set at Christmastime, where Jo, the second eldest of the March sisters, grumbles, "Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents." The four girls discuss the upcoming holiday and sigh as they long for pretty things that they can't have because of money constraints. On Christmas morning, they present their mother, affectionately known as "Marmee", with the gifts that they used their own money to buy and proceed to give their Christmas breakfast to the Hummels, a poor family of immigrants, while they settle for bread and milk. They are later rewarded when the wealthy neighbor, old Mr. Laurence sends them ice cream and flowers. Soon after, Meg and Jo attend a New Years party at Meg's friend, Sally Gardiner,'s house, where they meet Mr. Laurence's grandson. Laurie Laurence, who is later christened "Teddy" by Jo, proves to be a good friend.

The March sisters resume their everyday routines after the holidays end and take up their little burdens: Meg works as a governess in a household of unruly children, Jo looks after her disagreeable Aunt March, Amy faces a hard-hearted teacher and hostile peers, and although she stays at home and keeps house, Beth longs to take music lessons and have a fine piano. The girls, and their new friend Laurie, still find time for fun in snowball fights, the Pickwick club, and their little P.O. box, where all things from poetry and pickles to garden-seeds and puppies pass through. Mr. Laurence becomes like a grandfather to shy Beth and gives her his deceased granddaughter's piano.

Over a year later, the family receives a telegram informing that their father, who has been away serving as a chaplain in the civil war since he is too old to fight, has been injured. The girls are left to run the house while their mother goes to Washington D.C. to be with him. Laurie's tutor, John Brooke, accompanies her. Meanwhile, Beth has been visiting the Hummels regularly and has caught Scarlett fever from the baby. She recovers but will never be fully healthy again. Mr. March returns home and Mr. Brooke asks for Meg's hand in marriage. She is unsure at first but agrees, and they are engaged.

Part 2.

Three years thereafter Meg is happily married to John, and they have their own little house and twin babies. After Laurie returns from college, Jo has noticed a change in "her boy" and fears that he has fallen in love with her. She goes to a boarding house in New York to be a governess for the winter, while Amy goes abroad to Europe. Meanwhile, Beth is growing weaker and closer to death's door. Jo befriends a German professor and works on her writing, while the artist in Amy is inspired by the beauty and culture surrounding her in France, Germany, Switzerland, and England. Both girls often send letters home to the family describing their adventures.

Jo returns home and as she feared, Laurie proposes. As she does not love him, she turns him down and heartbroken, he leaves for Europe. Jo continues to look after Beth until she passes away. Since sweet Beth was her special girl, Jo is inconsolable. Laurie and Amy hear the news and return from Europe, quietly announcing their recent marriage. As the March family happily greets the newlyweds, a knock is heard at the door. Jo finds it is none other than Professor Baer, so she invites him in and introduces him to the family. He is well received, and soon the two realize their affections for one another.

A year later, Jo and Fritz Baer are married and settled at Plumfield, land Jo inherited from Aunt March after she died. They turn the big house into a school for boys and have two of their own, whom they name Rob after Jo's father, and Teddy after Laurie. Laurie and Amy have their own little girl named Beth, in rememberance of the beloved sister. Five years later, the entire family attends the Plumfield yearly apple picking: Marches, Laurences, Brookes, and Bhaers, alike. The book closes with Marmee saying, "O my girls, however long you may live, I never can wish you a greater happiness than this!"

Major Themes
Little Women adresses many themes, including: domesticity, money, and women's place in society. Little Women urges girls to first nurture their intellect, their personal passions and their character, to make true love all the sweeter, when society thinks the solution is a man in possession of a good fortune. Marmee offers many words of wisdom and firmly believes it is more important to have good character and a strong intellect than it is to catch husbands or climb the social ladder. She helps the girls with their own character flaws, as well. Meg discovers that money does not bring happiness while Jo learns to keep her temper in check. Louisa believed that to "help one another is part of the religion of our sisterhood."

Background
Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women in 1868 after months of urging by a Boston publisher who wanted a story for girls. She hadn't had much luck with a serious novel before, and she needed the money. The money Louisa earned helped with the daily expenses of her family living in Concord, Massachusetts, and in one letter she sent to them she said, "Don't go poor... or I shan't feel I had any right to be here so idle." Little Women ebbs and flows between actual event and authorial desire. Alcott herself was the second oldest of four girls, and was a feminist and abolitionist. Louisa once wrote in her diary, "Never liked girls or knew many except my sisters, but our queer plays and experiences may prove interesting, though I doubt it." Alcott opposes the conventions that reined in women in mid-19th century America.

Reception
Little Women is generally well received, one review refering to the March family as an "enduring symbol of tender domesticity." Put one way, "The March girls were the sisters and Marmee was the mother generations of readers wished we had, and we wished we had a next-door neighbor like Laurie, the handsome, musical, rich boy." "The combination of independence, cynicism, literary enthusiasm, and sisterhood propelled the novel to popularity that continues to this day, and even now, Little Women carries an engaging, almost subversive message", Holan, a newspaper staff writer, says. She continues, "Alcott's writing is delightfully rich, and her psychological portraits of young women ring true over 100 years later." One article says that, "Marmee's little homilies can be hard to swallow," and describes it as, "a sea of sentimentality."