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Little Women is a novel by Louisa May Alcott published on September 30, 1868, concerning the lives and loves of four sisters growing up during the American Civil War. It was based on Alcott's own experiences as a child in Concord, Massachusetts. After much demand, Louisa May Alcott wrote a sequel, Good Wives, which was published in 1869 and is often published together with Little Women as if it were a single work. Good Wives picks up three years after the events in the last chapter of Little Women ("Aunt March Settles The Question"), and includes characters and events often felt by fans to be essential to the Little Women story. Alcott later wrote Little Men and Jo's Boys, An Old Fashioned Girl, Rose in Bloom and How They Turned Out, which (most of the books mentioned) followed the lives of the girls' children.
Plot introduction Alcott's original work explores the overcoming of character flaws by following the example of Christian in Pilgrim's Progress (many of the chapter titles in this first part are allusions to the allegorical concepts and places in Pilgrim's Progress). The girls' "guidebooks" in their figurative quest are the bibles they each receive on Christmas morning in Chapter Two. Each of the March girls displays a major character flaw: Meg, greed; Jo, anger; Beth, crippling shyness; and Amy, selfishness. They overcome their flaws through lessons learned the hard way. Most of the flaws are in check for a time after lessons are learned, but even as young women the girls must work out these flaws in order to become archetypal mothers, wives, sisters, and citizens. In the course of the novel the girls become friends with their next-door neighbour Laurie, who becomes a special friend of Jo. As well as the more serious themes outlined above, the book describes the activities of the sisters and their friend, such as creating a newspaper and picnicking, and the scrapes that Jo and Laurie get into. Characters Other characters: Franz and Emil: Mr. Bhaer's two nephews whom he looks after following the death of his sister. Miss Norton: A worldly tenant living in Mrs. Kirke's boarding house. She occasionally takes Jo under her wing and entertains her. The Kings: Family who employ Meg as a governess. The Hummels: Very poor German immigrant family. Marmee and the girls, though poor themselves, try to help them. Their baby dies of scarlet fever and Beth contracts it while caring for the child. The Gardiners: Wealthy friends of Meg's. Before the Marches lost their wealth, the two families were societal equals. The Gardiners are portrayed as good-hearted but vapid, and believing in marriage for money and position. Meg's friend Sallie Gardiner eventually marries Ned Moffat, but is unhappy in her marriage. Uncle and Aunt Carrol: Sister and brother-in-law of Mr. March. Amy travels to Europe with them and their daughter Florence. Major themes The Christian theme of the novel is usually lessened in film versions. Of the many popular versions, the four-hour miniseries with Dey, Birney, and Plumb is considered most faithful to the novel. Literature In 2005, Geraldine Brooks published March, a novel exploring the gaps in Little Women, telling the story of Mr. March during the Civil War. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Film Additional versions appeared in 1917, 1918, 1946,1948, 1950, 1958, 1970, 1979, and 2001 *. Anime In 1987, the Japanese animation studio Nippon Animation did an anime adaptation titled Ai no Wakakusa Monogatari (The Story of Love's Young Grass). The series was part of the studio's World Masterpiece Theatre series of animated adaptations of classic Western literary works. The series was directed by Fumio Kurokawa with character designs by Yoshifumi Kondo. Saban Entertainment produced an English dubbed version (Tales of Little Women) which aired on HBO in the United States in 1988-89, and the series has also achieved immense popularity in Europe (Una per tutte, tutte per una in Italy, Les quatre filles du Docteur March in France, Mujercitas in Spain). This series changed the name of the town in which the series takes place from "Concord" to "Newcord", and also added episodes depicting scenes not from the novel at the beginning as a way of introducing the characters and educating the Japanese audience about the American Civil War, but is otherwise a faithful and highly regarded adaptation. Nippon Animation also produced an anime adaptation of Jo's Boys in 1993 for the World Masterpiece Theatre, titled Wakakusa monogatari: Nan to Jo-sensei (The Story of Young Grass: Nan and Mrs. Jo) and directed by Kozo Kusuba. Two other anime adaptations of Little Women were made in the early 1980s: a 1980 TV special produced by Toei Animation and directed by Yugo Serikawa, and Wakakusa Monogatari yori: Wakakusa no Yon Shimai (From the Story of Young Grass: Four Sisters of Young Grass), a 1981 Toei Animation/Kokusai Eigasha TV series directed by Kazuya Miyazaki and from the same animation team. The 1981 TV series was also released in the United States on video, courtesy of Sony. Still, Nippon Animation's 1987 version is the most successful and also widely regarded as the best of all anime adaptations of the story. As an interesting aside, seiyuu Keiko Han was cast in both the 1981 (as Beth) and 1987 (as Meg) TV series. In addition, Bakuretsu Tenshi (Burst Angel in English), a 24-episode anime TV series which aired in 2004 on TV Asahi and is released in the U.S. by Funimation Productions, features main characters named Meg, Jo and Amy — which, although the series has nothing to do with Alcott's novel, attests to the popularity the story enjoys in Japan to this day. A nod to the characters can be seen in the English release of the Nintendo 64 game, . In the Forest Temple, the player must solve four puzzles hosted by ghosts by the names of Amy, Beth, Joelle and Meg in order to progress through the game. Opera and musical In 1998 the book was adapted as an opera by composer Mark Adamo. In January 23, 2005, a Broadway musical adapted from the book opened at the August Wilson Theatre in New York City with book by Allan Knee, score by Jason Howland and lyrics by Mindi Dickstein. The musical starred pop singer Maureen McGovern (Marmee), of "The Morning After" fame, Sutton Foster (Jo March), and Jenny Powers (Meg March). The show closed on May 22, 2005. A national tour, again starring Maureen McGovern, began August 30 of that year. See also | ||||||||
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