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Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters

Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters

Current price: $27.95
Publication Date: August 21st, 2018
Publisher:
W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN:
9780393254730
Pages:
288

Description

On its 150th anniversary, discover the story of the beloved classic that has captured the imaginations of generations.

Soon after publication on September 30, 1868, Little Women became an enormous bestseller and one of America’s favorite novels. Its popularity quickly spread throughout the world, and the book has become an international classic. When Anne Boyd Rioux read the novel in her twenties, she had a powerful reaction to the story. Through teaching the book, she has seen the same effect on many others.

In Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy, Rioux recounts how Louisa May Alcott came to write Little Women, drawing inspiration for it from her own life. Rioux also examines why this tale of family and community ties, set while the Civil War tore America apart, has resonated through later wars, the Depression, and times of changing opportunities for women.

Alcott’s novel has moved generations of women, many of them writers: Simone de Beauvoir, J. K. Rowling, bell hooks, Cynthia Ozick, Jane Smiley, Margo Jefferson, and Ursula K. Le Guin were inspired by Little Women, particularly its portrait of the iconoclastic young writer, Jo. Many have felt, as Anna Quindlen has declared, “Little Women changed my life.”

Today, Rioux sees the novel’s beating heart in Alcott’s portrayal of family resilience and her honest look at the struggles of girls growing into women. In gauging its current status, Rioux shows why Little Women remains a book with such power that people carry its characters and spirit throughout their lives.

About the Author

Anne Boyd Rioux, a professor at the University of New Orleans, is the author of Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist and Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters, and the editor of Woolson’s Miss Grief and Other Stories. Rioux has received two National Endowment for the Humanities Awards, one for public scholarship, and lives in New Orleans.

Praise for Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters

Lively and informative…Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy does what—ideally—books about books can do: I’ve taken Little Women down from my shelf and put it on top of the books I plan to read.

— Francine Prose - New York Times Book Review

Highly entertaining and eminently sane…[Rioux] paints a compelling portrait of Alcott, giving us fascinating insights into the creation of Little Women.

— Charlotte Gordon - Washington Post

A love letter written not by a smitten youngster naïve to her beloved's drawbacks but by a mature adult who can recognize complexity and nuance.
— Ilana Masad - NPR

Astute examination of the long life of Little Women.

— Sophie Gilbert - The Atlantic

Thoughtful…An adroit consideration of Alcott and her milieu.
— Meghan Cox Gurdon - Wall Street Journal

This delightful look at a great American classic…tells the book’s history, explores its abiding appeal, and considers its influence on generations of readers and writers since. It goes without saying that lovers of that book will adore this book. But even those who haven’t read Little Women will enjoy learning about the literary history behind it.

— Christian Science Monitor

Highly companionable and illuminating.
— Mark Rozzo - Vanity Fair

What a marvelous investigation of Louisa May Alcott’s slyly subversive Little Women! Anne Boyd Rioux has given us a thorough and insightful examination of the enduring appeal of Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, and why generations of readers have claimed the March sisters as their own.

— Katharine Weber, author of The Little Women

Reading Anne Boyd Rioux’s engaging Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters, has made me pick up Alcott’s novel yet again with renewed insight and inspiration. Every fan of Little Women will delight in reading this book. And all the women—and men—who haven’t read the novel will race to it after reading Rioux.

— Ann Hood, author of Morningstar and The Book That Matters Most

Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters masterfully peels away the layers of complexity in Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel. Reflecting astute research and scholarship, Rioux’s book is immensely entertaining and informative, and can be easily enjoyed by teachers, scholars, and the multitude of Little Women lovers around the world.

— Daniel Shealy, editor of Alcott in Her Own Time