In the mid nineteenth century, Louisa May Alcott was a struggling, aspiring writer. She had written a great deal for periodicals, published a few books, and dabbled in sensationalism. Most of these she wrote under her own name, but some she penned under pseudonyms. Nevertheless, despite her attempts on all of these fronts, nothing ever really caught—nothing worked to bring her star fully into the realm of mass popularity.

This frustrated everyone involved. Alcott often complained of her tensions with the publishing industry—that they didn’t appreciate the kind of work she was penning; and in return the industry urged her to write things she didn’t want to write, things they thought were more likely to sell, and so this combative relationship wore on.

But then, in 1868, Alcott gave in. She wrote a story that she thought her publishers would finally be pleased with, with the intention of proving to them that what they wanted was boring, unlikely to succeed, and embarrassingly sentimental. She wrote this story, sent it in, and by year’s end, it was the most popular book in America. That book, was Little Women.

Little Women would continue to live in the zeitgeist uninterrupted for the next 156 years, spawning countless adaptations, reprints, spin-offs, and a fandom that would transcend both era and generation. As Little Women got older, and entered public domain, any limitation to the places and forms that Little Women could go completely dissolved. So, for the last century, Little Women has been anyone’s property—free to reprint, adapt, and engage with however you might see fit. And that has certainly happened, a lot.

Anlie Williams is a graduate student here at UNCW, and she has been examining these varied and disparate versions of Alcott’s most famous novel. She has been looking at how different elements of these renditions affect the original work, and how these versions alter the experience of the reader. She has dedicated her thesis to this project, and her findings speak to both the fine line between ownership and property, and the publishing marketplace, culture, and art.