Little Womem, a classic novel by American author Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888) was written and set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts. It was published in two parts in 1868 and 1869. The novel follows the lives of four well-to-do American sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy March—and is very loosely based on the author's childhood experiences with her own three sisters. Afer the first part of the book was published and became an immediate commercial and even critical success, the book's second part was published and went on to also become a huge success. Over the course of the novel, the sisters become friends with their neighbor, the similar aged boy Laurie, who becomes a close friend of Jo's. As well as the serious and sadder themes noted above, the novel explores the everyday activities of the sisters, such as creating a newspaper and picnicking, and the scrapes that Jo and Laurie manage to get into. The story explores family relationships and describes period family life of theat socio-economic class thoroughly. The novel also reflects issues of feminism, as Jo consistently and somewhat controversily struggles with the boundaries U.S. 19th century society placed on women, including not being able to join the military, not being able to recieve a higher education and being pressured by her Aunt to find a husband to take care of her and make decisions for her. This original work additionally explores the overcoming of character flaws-with each of the March girls struggling to overcome what they consider to be a major character flaw: Meg's is vanity; Jo's a hot temper; Beth's is shyness; and Amy's is selfishness. The girls work through these flaws in an attempt to live up to their mother and father's high expectations of them as sisters and future wives.