- Has never been out of print since its first publishing
in 1868?
- Is nearly always in the “Top 10” of
most-read books, frequently right behind the Bible?
- Was voted one of the top 21 books in the BBC’s
“Big Read” competition (November, 2003) for the all-time
favorite books of UK residents?
- Was translated into a dozen foreign languages
in Louisa May Alcott’s lifetime, and now appears in more than
50 different languages, including Bengali, Chinese, Indonesian, Swedish,
Turkish and Urdu?
- Netted Louisa May Alcott more than $200,000 from
the million copies sold in her lifetime, making her a millionaire
by today’s currency standards?
- Is read today by approximately one-third of all
girls ages 10-17, is often on the reading lists of college literature
classes and is required reading in Japan for students of American
History?
- Has been made into three major motion pictures,
countless stage adaptations, operettas, ballets and several made-for-television
movies (including one where Beth actually recovers from her illness!)
and Japanese anime?
- Popularized the names of Jo[sephine] and Amy in
the 20th Century, with many families of four daughters naming their
girls after the Marches?
- Inspired these words from a Yankee Magazine
reporter in the 1920s?
[The March family and their home] had arisen
in people’s minds like a stage lighting up, and a babble of
living voices, and so remains for their lifetimes – a family
as near and dear as any really known in life. Something in the magical
words, Little Women, draws people everywhere. It’s
a bigger thing in people’s hearts than even we’d realized.
Despite being written over 50 years ago, they still ring true.
