The classic children’s book “Little Women” was released 150 years ago and Kansas State University’s English department is celebrating author Louisa May Alcott’s most noted work with a lecture series, events, a special course and more throughout the 2018-2019 school year.

The first volume of the novel about the March sisters —the quartet of four very close but very different sisters whose lives intersect and then diverge and then come together again — was released in September 1868, while the second volume was published in April 1869.

The English department will kick off a Louisa May Alcott lecture series at 4 p.m. Friday, Sept. 21, in the Flint Hills Room at the K-State Student Union. Beverly Lynn Clark, professor of English at Wheaton College in Massachusetts and author of “The Afterlife of ‘Little Women,'” will present “The Littlest Woman? Picturing Alcott’s Artistic Amy.”

The second lecture in the series will be at 4 p.m. in the Tadtman Boardroom at the K-State Alumni Center. Anne Boyd Rioux, professor of English and graduate coordinator of English, women’s and gender studies faculty at the University of New Orleans, will present “Why ‘Little Women’ Still Matters 150 Years Later.” Rioux is the author of “Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of ‘Little Women’ and Why It Still Matters.”

Both lectures are free and the public is invited. More presentations in the series will be announced later, as well as other activities related to the book’s sesquicentennial.

To keep up to date on the English department’s various “Little Women” sesquicentennial events and activities, check out the department’s Facebook page, facebook.com/Kansas-State-English-Department-92667012395, and Twitter, twitter.com/englishkstate

; as well as posts by English professors Greg Eiselein and Anne Phillips for the book’s sesquicentennial at facebook.com/LittleWomen150/, on Twitter, twitter.com/LittleWomen150 , and littlewomen150.org , a site hosted by Orchard House.

Phillips and Eiselein are co-teaching a course about Louisa May Alcott this fall in honor of the author. They also are co-hosting hosting a yearlong blog called Little Women 150, https://lw150.wordpress.com.