Little Women
1869 · 777 pages
Four sisters grow up poor in a Massachusetts town while their father serves in the Civil War. Jo March wants to write, and readers have measured their own ambition against hers ever since.
★ 7.0
The Books canon
Sourced and shelved.
Every book chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 1,178 books or filter by subject, era, place, and author.
Browse all 1,178 books or filter by subject, era, place, and author.
The Woman in White
1860 · 671 pages
Walking home from Hampstead at night, a drawing master meets a woman all in white escaped from an asylum. Collins tells it as sworn testimony, and Victorian England bought Woman in White perfume.
★ 6.7
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter
1958 · 384 pages
Beauvoir rebuilds the pious Paris girlhood she fought her way out of, and sets against her own escape the fate of Zaza, the friend whose family refused her the man she loved.
★ 6.5