Before You Begin

Before you begin.

"Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," grumbles Jo March from the rug — and with that small complaint a whole household opens before us. The March sisters are poor that winter, their father away at the war, their mother working to hold the family together. Yet within these plain, faded rooms there is more warmth, mischief, ambition, and tenderness than any fortune could buy. Out of so ordinary a setting, Louisa May Alcott made one of the best-loved novels in the English language.

Drawing on her own girlhood in New England, Alcott gave us four sisters no reader ever forgets: practical, pretty Meg; fierce, scribbling, tomboyish Jo; gentle, music-loving Beth; and vain, artistic little Amy — each so vividly herself that generations have argued over which one they are. Around them gather the boy next door, Laurie; his grand, gruff grandfather; the patient tutor John Brooke; the kindly German professor, Friedrich Bhaer; and at the heart of it all, Marmee. Published in 1868, Little Women spoke so truly to the hopes of young women that it has never once gone out of print.

It endures because it tells the truth about growing up — about wanting to be good and failing, about money and pride, about first love and great loss, about turning small daily acts of kindness into a life that matters. It can make you laugh on one page and ache on the next.

This illustrated edition gathers the novel into six visual movements — recap plates you unlock as you read, each drawing together the sisters, homes, and turns of the story so far, with never a glimpse of what lies ahead. Turn the page and step into the world of the March family — their little house, the great house next door, and the four young women who fill them with life.