My sister sent me the link to a library site talking about the hundred best books. Check out all the different book covers. Which one is your favourite? I like too many of them to have one.
#25 Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1868 & 1869)
I didn’t just read Little Women as a child, I inhabited it. I read
it over and over again, beginning at around the age of nine, and never
seemed to tire of returning to the fictional world and family that
Alcott had crafted. I wanted to be Jo March more than anything. When as
an adult I finally got visit Orchard House in Concord (the house she
based the March’s house on, and the house where she wrote Little Women)
I honestly had a deep sense of homecoming. - Beth Priest (Endless Books)
Again, a book I have reread since childhood and still love. Of course
growing up in a family of four girls, like the Marches undoubtedly
influenced my love of the book. It is the first book I remember reading
where a main character died. Oh how many tears I’ve shed for Beth. It
is also the first where my expectations were defied. Until I saw the
modern film version, where Gabriel Byrne played the professor, I just
couldn’t believe Jo would choose him over Laurie. You can’t help but
think that the Marchs have inspired the Penderwicks and McKay’s Exiles. - Janice E. Bojda, Head of Children's Services, Evanston Public Library
And every time I read it I'd get so mad about Jo not marrying Laurie! And then by the end I'd be reconciled to Professor Baer. - Sally Engelfried
I still think Jo should have married Laurie. - Jennifer Sauls
Early on there was a little speculation as to what the oldest book on
this Top 100 Children's Novels list might be. I am happy to report that
coming in at #25 is Alcott's finest. It is the oldest book you will
find in this collection (sorry, The Tales of Peter Parley About America fans).
The plot from Anita Silvey's Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Children's Book
reads, "The four March girls - determined Jo, beautiful Meg, saintly
Beth, and artistic Amy - experience first the problems of the Civil War
years and then the period after the war. All struggled with character
defects (Meg vanity; Jo tempter ; Beth shyness; and Amy selfishness);
all deal with the problems created by their family's poverty. Without
question one of the saddest moments universally acknowledged in
children's fiction comes when Beth dies. And that, of course,
underscores the great strength of Alcott's work; she brings these
characters to life. But Jo carries the story. She refuses to accept
what society tells her to be. She is generous and loving, cutting off
her own hair to provide money for the family, but she is never a
victim. She finds her own path and becomes what she wants to be, a
writer."
And its origin story? The Reference Guide to American Literature
describes the creation of the book(s) in this way: "Alcott's purpose in
writing Little Women was not to create a nostalgic portrait of an
idyllic childhood, though the book is often read as such. She wrote it
to make money." Horn Book's article "Introduction to the
Centennial Edition of Little Women" by Cornelia Meigs goes into a bit
more detail on the matter. "In September, 1867, [Alcott] mentions in
her diary that Mr. Thomas Niles of Roberts Brothers had asked her for a
book for girls. It seems to have been somewhat of a shot in the dark
even for him; for her it was even more unpromising than that. She
agreed to try, but linked the task so little that she did not go on
with it. Other and easier-seeming undertakings were allowed to come in
the way and in May, 1867, she sent her father to Mr. Niles to ask him
if he would not be interested in a fairy book. Thomas Niles answered
firmly that he wanted a book for girls." And so, dear reader, she did.
The second part of Little Women was originally published in 1869 as Good Wives. Usually that book is paired with the first into one great big Little Women,
though. Part one was drawn quite a bit from Alcott's own life (even to
the point where Amy was simply the rearranged letters of Louisa's
actual sister). Elizabeth, Lousia's sister, died at twenty-three.
Louisa was very disappointed when the family broke up. The Alcott girls
donated their Christmas breakfast to a needy family once. Louisa won a
hundred dollars in a writing contest. The girls often performed their
own plays. It's all there! I was particularly pleased to find a letter
in the May 1903 edition of St. Nicholas from Annie Alcott
Pratt, otherwise known to the world as "Meg". She clarifies a couple
points. " 'Meg' was never the pretty vain little maiden, who coquetted
and made herself so charming. But 'Jo' always admired poor, plain
'Meg,' and when she came to put her into the story, she beautified her
to suit the occasion, saying, 'Dear me, girls, we must have one beauty
in the book!' So 'Meg,' with her big mouth and homely nose, shines
forth quite a darling, and no doubt all the ' little women' who read of
her admire her just as loving old 'Jo' does, and think her quite
splendid. But, for all that, she is nothing but homely, busy, and, I
hope, useful 'Annie' who writes this letter to you." It goes on from
there. Fascinating reading.
In her critical essay on Little Women in Novels for Students,
author Jennifer Bussey explains a lot of the book's appeal at the time.
"Because most characters in children's books at the time were too
perfect, readers were less interested in what eventually became of
them. In Little Women, however, readers saw themselves in the
pages of the story and longed to know how things turned out for the
March girls. Thus, being character driven is part one's strength." It's
true. The sermonizing in this book has nothing on the average everyday
19th-century novel of the time. Alcott allowed her characters to be a
little more than merely "good" or "bad". A novel notion, no?
It's the honesty of the writing that folks (adult folks anyway) tend to love. In Intent Upon Reading: A Critical Appraisal of Modern Fiction for Children
author Margery Fisher writes, "How many family stories there are in
which the plot centers round poverty: how few in which you can really
smell that poverty. Little Women has a permanent place on the bookshelves of the young because of its sterling honesty."
There is great lamenting and gnashing of teeth when people discuss the
fact that Jo and next door neighbor boy Laurie don't hook up. I rather
like Bussey's explanation of why that is, though. "While it is tempting
to imagine that Alcott wrote for Jo a fate she had hoped for herself,
the author's correspondence proves otherwise. She knew that readers
desperately wanted to see Jo marry, but Alcott was unwilling to make
the obvious choice of Laurie as a husband. Alcott understands Jo so
completely that she cannot allow her to marry Laurie, even though it
disappoints most readers. Jo loves Laurie as a brother, not as a
husband, and she knows that he does not fully appreciate how important
her writing is to her. As his wife, she would be expected to socialize
in high society and behave like a lady. Knowing herself well enough to
know that the marriage would not be fulfilling, Jo refuses his
proposal." She later goes on to speculate that Professor Bhaer was
inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson, but that's neither here nor there.
- Download the book here.
- Here are some lesson plans.
- You can join the Louisa May Alcott Society if you've an inkling to do so.
- It seems appropriate that at the same time I put this book up on the list, I get this other book in the mail: Little Vampire Women. Actually . . . it makes a lot of sense when you think about it.
A review in Harper's New Monthly Magazine
at the time said of it, "It is natural, and free from that false
sentiment which pervades too much of juvenile literature.
Autobiographies, if genuine, are generally interesting, and it is
shrewdly suspected that Joe's experience as an author photographs some
of Miss Alcott's own literary mistakes and misadventures."
The Nation was a little more snide, saying "Miss Alcott's new juvenile [novel, Little Women,]
is an agreeable little story, which is not only very well adapted to
the readers for whom it is especially intended, but may also be read
with pleasure by older people. The girls depicted all belong to healthy
types, and are drawn with a certain cleverness, although there is in
the book a lack of what painters call atmosphere—things and people
being painted too much in 'local colors,' and remaining, under all
circumstances, somewhat too persistently themselves."
Re: The covers - Sing, my pretties! Sing!
The most dramatic cover by far:
If Little Women were set in the early1960s. Or maybe 80s. Geez:
I wonder why Laurie never makes the cover cut?
Oops! Spoke too soon. And that's some jaw.
With this one I like to play a little game I'm calling Spot-the-Jo.
Spot-the-Jo Part II:
The appearance of the mysterious 5th sister in, what appears to be, Edwardian England:
Chinese (they all look kind of nervous):
Hebrew:
And let us not forget the multiple filmed versions of this book for countless generations. In 1933 Katherine Hepburn was Jo.
Elizabeth Taylor played Amy in the 1949 version.
Then came 1978. The big star was Meredith Baxter Birney as Meg, Susan Dey as Jo, and . . . William Shatner as Professor Bhaer? Hoo boy.
The inevitable 1987 Japanese animated series:
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