This edition of Little Women is based on the unabridged 1896 edition with the original illustrations by Frank T.Merrill. Little Women is a novel by American author Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888), which was originally published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869. The novel follows the lives of four sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March—detailing their passage from childhood to womanhood, and is loosely based on the author and her three sisters. Louisa May Alcott also wrote two sequels to Little Women, both of which also featured the March sisters: Little Men (1871) and Jo's Boys (1886).