The two American classics here together in one volume, Little Men and Jo's Boys, are worthy sequels to Little Women, one of the best-loved children's stories of all time, and its continuation, Good Wives. In Little Men, Louisa May Alcott takes up the story of the everyday dramas and exploits of the naughty but easy-going boys at Plumfield, now a boarding-school run by Professor Bhaer and his lovable madcap wife Jo, the most fiery and free-spirited of the four March sisters. Jo's Boys revisits the one-time members of that 'wilderness of boys' ten years later when they are making their ways in the world with varying degrees of triumph and disaster.
Louisa May Alcott, daughter of Amos Bronson Alcott, one of Emerson's circle of friends, was born in Philadelphia in 1832. Educated mainly by H. D. Thoreau and her father, Miss Alcott served as a hospital nurse during the Civil War. Her first book, Flower Fables, appeared in 1854, and her next work, Hospital Sketches (1863), consisted of her letters home from the Union Hospital during the war. She first gained a wide reputation with Little Women (1868-69), and her best subsequent work was done in the same field. Her chief publications after Little Women are the following: An Old-Fashioned Girl (1870), Little Men (1871), Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag (1871-79), Work (1873), Silver Pitchers (1876), Rose in Bloom (1876), Jo's Boys (1886), and A Garland for Girls (1887). Good Wives is the second part of Little Women. Miss Alcott died in 1888.
