Audiobook · read by volunteers
Little Women
Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888)
Read by Elizabeth, Mary Anderson, Lee Ann Howlett, Elizabeth Klett, David Jaquay, Wina Hathaway, Jennette Selig, Claire Goget, Graeme Jolliffe, katyleah · 47 chapters · 18 h 59
About the book
Four sisters, a modest house in New England and a father away at the war: this is the world of Little Women. Meg, the eldest, longs for the comforts the family once enjoyed. Jo is a restless, bookish tomboy who dreams of becoming a writer. Beth, gentle and shy, loves her piano and her kittens. Amy, the youngest, is an artist with a keen sense of her own importance. Under the guidance of their loving mother, whom they call Marmee, the girls learn, often by mistake, how to be generous, patient and true. Louisa May Alcott fills the story with games, plays, quarrels, small triumphs and heavy losses, and the result is a portrait of family life that has been loved for more than a century and a half. Forty-seven chapters and nineteen hours make this a long companion, and a rewarding one.
Introduction
Louisa May Alcott was born in 1832 and died in 1888. She grew up in a New England household of ideas and little money, among writers and reformers, and she turned to writing partly to support her family. Little Women, published in 1868, was written at the request of a publisher who wanted a book for girls. She was reluctant at first, but the result was a great success and brought her fame and financial security.
The novel follows the four March sisters through several years of growing up, against the background of the American Civil War, in which their father serves as a chaplain. It draws freely on Alcott's own childhood and her relations with her sisters, and Jo is often seen as a portrait of the author herself. What distinguished the book in its day was its realism: its girls have tempers and faults, and the story takes their ambitions and disappointments seriously. The warm domestic scenes are balanced by moments of real sorrow.
This recording was produced by LibriVox volunteers, who share the reading across forty-seven chapters, for a total of nearly nineteen hours. The chapters have their own titles, from Playing Pilgrims to A Merry Christmas, and each one can almost stand on its own.
Why listen today? Because the book's central questions, how to make something of oneself, how to love one's family without being swallowed by it, still feel alive, and because its humour and tenderness have not faded.
Public domain
Louisa May Alcott died in 1888: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text