SOURCE: "Louisa May Alcott: Little Women," in What Katy Read: Feminist Re-readings of 'Classic' Stories for Girls, University of Iowa Press, 1995, pp. 85-106.

In the following chapter, Foster and Simons explain that critics tend to be emotionally engaged with Little Women because its subject, female development, is universally mythic, and its realism keeps it timeless.

Louisa May Alcott's Little Women (1868) is probably the most famous of all the works discussed in this study, and of the nineteenth-century texts certainly the most enduring in popularity. Although it is over a hundred and twenty years since its first appearance, it remains a best-seller in both the United States and in Britain. The original novel is available in both hardcover and paperback editions on the permanent classics list of mainstream publishing houses, selling alongside abridged, adulterated and cartoon versions of the adventures, and even the further adventures, of Meg, Jo, Beth...