This authoritative, accurate text of the first edition (1868–69)
of Little Women is accompanied by textual variants
and thorough explanatory annotations.
“Backgrounds and
Contexts” includes a wealth of archival materials,
among them previously unpublished correspondence with Thomas
Niles and Alcott’s own precursors to Little Women.
“Criticism”
reprints twenty nineteenth-century reviews. Seven modern essays
represent a variety of critical theories used to read and
study the novel, including feminist (Catharine R. Stimpson,
Elizabeth Keyser), new historicist (Richard H. Brodhead),
psychoanalytic (Angela M. Estes and Kathleen Margaret Lant),
and reader-response (Barbara Sicherman).
A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.
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