Little Women

Little Women follows the lives of the four March sisters-Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy-and details their passage from childhood to womanhood. It is loosely based on the lives of the author and her three sisters. Little Women was an immediate commercial and critical success.
The novel addresses three major themes: "domesticity, work, and true love, all of them interdependent and each necessary to the achievement of its heroine's individual identity." According to literary historian Sarah Elbert, Alcott created a new form of literature, one that took elements from Romantic children's fiction and combined it with others from sentimental novels, resulting in a totally new format. Elbert argues that within Little Women can be found the first vision of the "All-American girl" and that her various aspects are embodied in the differing March sisters.
The book has been translated into numerous languages, and frequently adapted for stage and screen.