Little Women

On my post for MLK day, Miss Yves (in France) commented that as a girl she had read and loved Uncle Tom's Cabin and something she referred to as "Little Ladies." I was puzzled and then it came to me -- Little Women.

Miss Yves replied to my query: "Yes , of course, "little women "; my favourite character was Jo !!!!!!!! The french translation was: "les quatre filles du docteur March."



It's amazing, the popularity of this book -- it still sells well on Amazon (though I suspect it may be bought mainly by grandmothers and aunts wishing to share a beloved book with the younger generation.)

I read it first back in the 1950's -- a good ninety years after the time it takes place -- but it always seemed fairly contemporary to me. Sure, there was talk of horse drawn carriages and the illustrations showed the little women in long dresses but it wasn't like reading a historical novel -- it was reading about four girls.

Like Miss Yves, I liked Jo the best. I admired Meg and her gentle beauty; I enjoyed Amy's artistic efforts, her silly pretentiousness, and her difficulties in school (what are pickled limes, anyway?) Sweet little Beth was a little cloying, for my taste.

But I felt I knew all of them -- I devoured Little Women and its sequels Good Wives and Little Men, and there are bits of the lives of the March family that are as real to me as my own past -- the sisters taking up staffs and pretending to be pilgrims, Jo's attic where she wrote, the blanc mange the sisters took to the invalid Laurie, Jo's eventual renunciation of Laurie, the lobster salad at Amy's school party, the lemonade at Meg's wedding, the white rose that Amy gave Laurie, the museum the boys had at Dr. Baer's school, the little cook stove that Daisy cooked a meal on -- I was there, I tell you!

I wore out the my first copy of Little Women/Good Wives. I still have this copy of Old- Fashioned Girl - wherein country mouse Polly comes to the city to stay with wealthy relatives.

This one was my mother's -- and it was already a period piece back in 1928.

I adored it. And Polly was as real and as relevant to me as Nancy Drew or the Bobbsey Twins or the Pevensey children -- they were all real people who just happened to live in books.

While looking for an illustration I came across this:
New York Times review from 2005

And this -- I hadn't known about May Alcott -- Louisa's sister and probable prototype for Amy -- who did the illustrations for the original Little Women.

I wonder how these books would strike someone today, encountering them for the first time?

Overly didactic? Saccharine? Sweetly sentimental?

I don't know. I read and loved them -- and still do.