Promotional Information

This superb, scrupulously researched book breaks fascinating new ground. Clark provides readers with a comprehensive narrative for understanding the changing reception of Little Women. She explores a diverse and substantial number of responses, both in the United States and globally, including personal reactions, popular reviews, scholarly analyses, and adaptations of all kinds. She also raises larger questions about the creation of childhood and the formation of cultural memory. No one has previously researched the critical or popular reception of Little Women in such detail or with such nuance. This is an impressive, original, and well-written book. -- Gregory Eiselein, Kansas State University, coeditor of The Louisa May Alcott Encyclopedia

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Becoming Everyone's Aunt, 1868–1900
2. Waxing Nostalgic, 1900–1930
3. Outwitting Poverty and War, 1930–1960
4. Celebrating Sisterhood and Passion since 1960
Notes
Index

About the Author

Beverly Lyon Clark is a professor of English and women's studies at Wheaton College. She is the author of Kiddie Lit: The Cultural Construction of Children's Literature in America, also published by Johns Hopkins, the editor of Louisa May Alcott: The Contemporary Reviews, and the coeditor of "Little Women" and the Feminist Imagination: Criticism, Controversy, Personal Essays.

Reviews

Even as new Alcott-oriented scholarship, adaptations, and other artifacts appear, The Afterlife of 'Little Women' will continue to be essential to Alcott studies and a model for reception scholars. Reception