The Secret History Behind Little Women and Good Wives
The book that inspired readers for generations . . . even fictional characters!
Many of us grew up with Little Women, thinking of it as one seamless story—four March sisters growing up through joy, loss, love, and life lessons. But did you know the book we know today was originally two?
When Louisa May Alcott first published Little Women in 1868, it included only chapters 1–23. That first installment ended on a hopeful, if somewhat open, note. But readers—especially young women—clamored for more. Letters flooded Alcott’s publisher asking, What happens next? Do the girls marry? Does Laurie get Jo?
So in 1869, Alcott penned a sequel titled Good Wives, picking up the story as the March girls face adulthood, heartbreak, and their diverging paths. In time, publishers combined the two into the single volume most of us know today, with Good Wives now comprising chapters 24–47.
Interestingly, while Alcott was American, British readers were among her most devoted fans. Good Wives in particular gained popularity across the Atlantic, resonating with Victorian ideals of duty, sacrifice, and marriage—even as Alcott herself often pushed back against those expectations.
If you’ve only ever read Little Women as one complete work, you’re in good company—but now you know its layered history. And perhaps you’ll read it again with fresh eyes, appreciating how Jo and her sisters evolved… not just in fiction, but in the hands of their author, who hadn’t planned to write their full stories until readers begged her to.
In Of Silver and Secrets, the heroine Eva reads Little Women aloud to her blind sister—not just because it’s a classic, but because it’s comfort. It’s sisterhood, struggle, and quiet hope wrapped in pages they both know by heart. If you’ve ever clung to a favorite book during hard times, you’ll get it. And if you’re curious how one very determined Victorian woman juggles cursed land, family secrets, and a brooding professor (while still making time for Jo March), you just might love Of Silver and Secrets.
And you also might win a signed copy of the Time’s Lost Treasure Duology if you enter this Rafflecopter . . .
