Little Women

The March sisters meet the reader on Christmas Eve, poor but rich in each other. They give away their Christmas breakfast to the Hummel family, receive gifts from Marmee, and begin a self-improvement project inspired by The Pilgrim's Progress. Jo meets Laurie at a New Year's Eve ball.

Jo submits her first story and begins writing in earnest. Amy burns Jo's manuscript in retaliation for a social slight and nearly drowns afterward. Beth befriends old Mr. Laurence and receives his late granddaughter's piano. Meg goes to stay with wealthy friends and returns embarrassed by her own envy.

Father is wounded at the front; Marmee must leave for Washington. Jo sells her hair to pay for the journey. The girls manage alone. Beth contracts scarlet fever from the Hummel baby and nearly dies. Father comes home.

The girls try a week of rest with no housework, with comic and instructive results. Meg learns to manage her jealousy of wealth. Laurie stages a mischievous newspaper prank involving Jo's stories. Jo learns her first lesson about the public self a writer must manage.

Meg becomes engaged to John Brooke. Laurie attempts to interfere in the engagement and is sharply corrected by Marmee. Jo is devastated by Meg's impending marriage, feeling that the sisterhood is being broken. The girls must confront what growing up actually costs.

Three years pass. Part Two begins with Meg married and learning housekeeping. Jo goes to New York as a governess and writer. She meets Professor Friedrich Bhaer, an older German scholar who challenges her sensational fiction. Beth's health remains fragile. Amy goes to Europe with Aunt March.

Beth's illness worsens throughout Part Two. Jo returns from New York sensing something is wrong. Beth and Jo share a long, honest conversation by the sea in which Beth reveals she knows she is dying. Jo stays home to care for her.

Laurie, rejected by Jo and adrift in Europe after his grandfather sends him to study, encounters Amy abroad. He is dissolute; she challenges and steadies him. They fall in love. Laurie proposes and Amy accepts.

After Beth's death, Jo is lost. She tries to write but cannot. Marmee suggests she needs what she refused — love and a partner. Bhaer arrives from New York, makes his slow, uncertain way toward a declaration, and proposes in the rain. Jo accepts.

Years later: Marmee's birthday in the orchard. Meg has twins. Jo runs a school for boys in the house Aunt March left. Amy and Laurie are returned from Europe. All gather. The novel ends with Marmee surrounded by daughters, grandchildren, and the warm abundance of a life well-built.