With a large 7.44"x9.69" page size, this Summit Classic edition is printed on hefty bright white paper with a fully laminated cover featuring an original full color design. Page headers and modern design and page layout exemplify the attention to detail given this collector-quality volume. "Little Men," first published in 1871, is the sequel to Louisa May Alcott's beloved classic "Little Women" and the second book of an informal trilogy, completed with Alcott's 1886 novel "Jo's Boys." "Little Men" is the story of six months in the life of the students at Plumfield, a school run by Professor Friedrich and Mrs. Josephine Bhaer, who is of course "Jo" from "Little Women." Very loosely based on Alcott's own life, the unconventional school, where children keep their own gardens and experiment with running businesses, was most likely inspired by the failed school operated by her father, a transcendentalist and utopian. The story opens with the arrival of Nat, a shy young orphan accustomed to making his way by playing the violin, and it is through Nat's perspective that most of the other characters are introduced. The school, which occupies the March home inherited by Jo, is the center of events for a group of over a dozen children, and the story follows their relationships and their activities with one another and various adults, as well as Jo's sons Rob and Teddy, who are younger than the others and not counted among the pupils. As with many of Alcott's stories, the house and grounds, modeled on her family's home, provide the setting, and in some respects almost function as a character in the story. Born in 1832 in Germantown Pennsylvania, Alcott's parents were members of the Transcendentalist movement. The family was generally on the brink of poverty, as her father founded a school that failed and them moved his family to a utopian commune which also failed. Other Transcendentalists, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Nathaniel Hawthorne were visitors in the Alcott home. Louisa's first book, "Flower Fables," was a collection of stories originally written for Emerson's daughter Ellen, and Emerson provided finacial assistance for the purchase of what became the family's home and the setting for many of her stories in 1845. In 1860 Alcott began writing for the Atlantic Monthly, and her brief experience as a nurse in a Civil War hospital formed the basis for "Hospital Sketches," published in 1863 and bringing her critical recognition. After a series of sensationalist books and stories written under the name A. M. Barnard in the mid-1860's, Alcott turned her attention to writing for children and rarely wrote adult-oriented fiction thereafter. An aboltionist and a feminist, Louisa May Alcott was the first woman to register to vote in Concord Massachusetts. In her later years Alcott suffered recurring health problems, possibly as a result of lupus or an autoimmune disease. She died after suffering a stroke on March 6, 1888. "Little Women" is also available from Summit Classic Press in a handsome companion volume.