Alcott, Louisa May, 1832-1888
Little Women: Alcott's best-known novel. Loosely based on her own life, the novel takes us through the lives of four sisters: Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy, as they grow up. Each of the March girls must struggle to overcome a major character flaw: Meg, vanity; Jo, a hot temper; Beth, shyness; and Amy, selfishness. In the course of the novel, the girls become friends with their teenage next-door neighbor, Laurie. The book describes the activities of the sisters and their friend, such as creating a newspaper and picnicking, and the various scrapes that Jo and Laurie get into.
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/514
Good Wives: Sequel to Little Women. Readers clamoured for a second volume that would bring about a marriage between the main character Jo, and her childhood friend, Laurie. In response to this demand, Alcott wrote a second part, entitled Good Wives, which was published in 1869. The second part picks up three years after the events in the last chapter of the first part ("Aunt March Settles The Question"). While resisting the popular demand to see Jo and Laurie wed, Alcott did write marriages for three of the March sisters.
http://www.bibliomania.com/0/0/5/6/frameset.html
Little Men: Little Men follows the life of Jo Bhaer and the students who live and learn at the Plumfield Estate School that she runs with her husband, Professor Bhaer. The mischievous children, whom she loves and cares for as her own, learn valuable lessons as they become proper gentlemen and ladies. We also get cameo appearances of almost all the characters found in the previous books, almost all of them happy and well. Meg's older two children, Demi and Daisy joined the school as well as Mr. Bhaer's German nephews Franz and Emil. http://www.digital.library.upenn.edu/women/alcott/men/men.html
Jo's Boys: The book mostly follows the lives of Plumfield boys who were introduced in Little Men, particularly Tommy, Demi, Nat, Dan, and Emil and Jo's sons Rob and Teddy, although Franz, Nan, Daisy, Dolly, and Stuffy make frequent appearances as well. The book takes place ten years after Little Men. Tommy becomes a medical student to try and impress childhood sweetheart Nan, but joins his family business after "accidentally" falling in love with and proposing to a girl named Dora. Dolly and George are college students dealing with the temptations of snobbery, arrogance, self-indulgence and vanity.
http://freeread.com.au/ebooks00/fr100277.txt
Eight Cousins, or The Aunt-Hill, 1875: Rose Campbell is a lonely and sickly girl who has been recently orphaned and must now reside with her maiden aunts, the matriarchs of her wealthy Boston family. When Rose's guardian, Uncle Alec, returns from abroad, he takes over her care. Through his unorthodox theories about child-rearing, she becomes happier and healthier while finding her place in her family of seven boy cousins and numerous aunts and uncles.
http://freeread.com.au/ebooks00/fr100281.txt
Jack and Jill: Jack Minot and Janey Pecq are best friends who live next door to each other. They are always seen together, and so Janey soon gets the nickname of Jill, to mimic the old rhyme. The two do go up a hill one winter day—and then suffer a terrible accident. Seriously injured, the two recover from their physical injuries, while learning life lessons along with their many friends.
http://freeread.com.au/ebooks00/fr100269.txt
An Old-Fashioned Girl: Tom and Fanny have a visitor, the old-fashioned little girl Polly. The first book is about Polly having to deal with irritating Tom, who is sometimes nice and sometimes mean, her own simple country clothes being made fun of by Fan's friends, and temptations that come her way. The second book, which is about what happens six years after Polly leaves the Shaw house, works as a music teacher, and is looked down upon because of that.
http://freeread.com.au/ebooks00/fr100274.txt
Under the Lilacs: When two young girls decide to have a tea party with their dolls and a mysterious dog comes and eats their prized cake, they end up finding a circus run-away, Ben Brown. Many adventures and summer-happenings follow: Sancho gets lost, Ben is accused of stealing, Miss Celia even gets hurt and Ben takes a wild ride on her horse, Lita.
http://freeread.com.au/ebooks00/fr100262.txt
The Abbot's Ghost, or Maurice Treherne's Temptation A Christmas Story: Maurice Traherne is wrongly accused of fraud and gambling and must play a careful hand if he is to win his love, Octavia, from the grasp of other, less honorable men and retain the trust of those who had faith in him. Traherne is temporarily crippled saving the life of his well-born friend, Jaspar. Thus, Jaspar is assured of inheriting his father's estate, but it is expected that Traherne will inherit great wealth as gratitude for saving the heir. But--surprise!--on the death of Jaspar's father all are shocked to learn that Traherne has been disinherited.
http://freeread.com.au/ebooks00/fr100264.txt
Work: a Story of Experience: First published in 1873, a semi-autobiographical novel, set in the times before and after the American Civil War. The story depicts the struggles of a young woman trying to support herself. Christie Devon works outside the home in a variety of different jobs, but the end of her story marks "the beginning of a new career as a voice and activist for other working women". The character David Sterling is loosely based on Alcott's friend, Henry David Thoreau.
http://freeread.com.au/ebooks00/fr100270.txt
Transcendental Wild Oats: A Chapter from an Unwritten Romance is a prose satire about the Alcotts' involvement with the Transcendentalist community Fruitlands in the early 1840s. The men of the community spend their time in pointless debates while Sister Hope works from dawn to dusk to maintain their existence. A classic view of male arrogance and female exploitation.
http://womenshistory.about.com/od/alcottlouisamay/a/lma_transcend.htm
A long fatal love chase: The Faustian plot centers on Rosamond Vivian, a discontented maiden who lives on an English island with only her bitter old grandfather for company and who begins the novel by rashly declaring: "I often feel as if I'd gladly sell my soul to Satan for a year of freedom." Right on cue, a man named Phillip Tempest - a man who bears a more than a trivial resemblance to Mephistopheles - walks in the door. Within a month, Rosamond is in love, and although she realises that this man is "no saint", she marries him, believing with the fatuousness of youth that her love will save him. She sails away from her lonely island in Tempest's yacht, the Circe, and begins her married life at a luxurious villa in Nice. (Limited preview)
http://books.google.com/books?id=4BW3rNyMlKoC&pg=PP1&dq=a+long+fatal+love+chase#v=onepage&q=&f=false
The Inheritance: "The Inheritance" was written by Louisa May Alcott when she was only 17 years old. This novel tells the story of Edith Adelon, an Italian orphan who lives with the aristocratic Hamilton family. This is a sentimental, romantic story about love, treachery, and a family secret. (Limited preview)
http://books.google.com/books?id=Fh4Qm1_9IU0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+Inheritance+alcott#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Moods: Sylvia Yule, the heroine of Moods, is a passionate tomboy who yearns for adventure. The novel opens as she embarks on a river camping trip with her brother and his two friends, both of whom fall in love with her. These rival suitors, close friends, are modeled on Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Inexperienced, Sylvia marries the wrong man. In the rest of the novel, Alcott attempts to resolve the dilemma she has created and leaves her readers asking whether, in fact, there is a place for a woman such as Sylvia in a man's world.
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/28203
The Mysterious Key and What It Opened:
Widowed Lady Trevlyn and her little daughter Lillian take in a strange boy from France who soon becomes a favourite with both of them. But the boy has a secret agenda.
http://freeread.com.au/ebooks00/fr100273.txt
Pauline's Passion and Punishment
Pauline Valery seeks revenge against her false lover, Gilbert Redmond, who abandoned her to marry a wealthy, younger woman. Although she admits that her vindictiveness is "weak, wicked, and unwomanly", Pauline is determined to wound Gilbert as he wounded her. She enlists the aid of the loyal, young, rich Manuel Laroche, who agrees to marry her so that she can have the freedom and protection to carry out her plan.
http://freeread.com.au/ebooks00/fr100268.txt
A Modern Mephistopheles. 1877. Originally published anonymously.Jasper Helwyze, the "modern Mephistopheles," rescues the suicidal young poet Felix Canaris for a psychological experiment, and to amuse himself. Felix achieves success and fame as poet by deception; he passes off the writings of Helwyze as his own.
http://www.archive.org/details/modernmephistoph00alcoiala
Diana and Persis. 1879. Unfinished; existing chapters published in 1978. A tale of two artists, Diana and Persis. Persis travels to Montmarte, gets married, and loses interest in art. (Limited preview)
http://books.google.com/books?id=QZ9qviCSpsgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Diana+and+Persis#v=onepage&q=&f=false
