We hope you enjoy this preview of an episode from our back catalog available to our premium subscribers. Tonight, we’ll read the opening chapter to “Little Women” by American author Louisa May Alcott, published in 1868. Following the lives of the four March sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy—the novel details their passage from childhood to womanhood and is loosely based on the author and her sisters. To unlock full episodes and ad-free listening of this series and more, please go to snoozecast.com/plus.

Alcott wrote the books over several months at the request of her publisher. She later recalled that she did not think she could write a successful book for girls and did not enjoy writing it. "I plod away," she wrote in her diary, "although I don't enjoy this sort of things.” The book's immediate success surprised both her and her publisher. 

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