LITTLE WOMEN is a novel by American author LOUISA MAY ALCOTT (1832-1888). 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. The novel has three major themes: domesticity, work, and true love. All of them are interdependent and each is necessary to the achievement of a heroine's individual identity. Little Women itself has been read as a romance or as a quest, or both.