In 1868, Louisa May Alcott was skeptical when a publisher asked her to write a girls' novel: "Never liked girls or knew many, except my sisters," she confided to her journal, "but our queer plays and experiences may prove interesting, though I doubt it."
More than 125 years later, those "queer plays and experiences" are better known as "Little Women," a book that has sold millions of copies worldwide and inspired countless girls to model themselves on its spunky heroine, Jo March. Its third film adaptation, which opens here Christmas Day, is expected to bring new readers to Alcott's books and new visitors to Orchard House in Concord, Mass., where she wrote her most famous work.
The beloved classic about the March family's struggles during the Civil War could use a boost. Although never out of print and a "must-have" for most public libraries, "Little Women's" popularity has faded in recent years, surpassed by modern books such as "The Babysitters' Club," and R. L. Stine's horror stories for teen-agers.
But "Little Women" endures, largely because women pass it down from generation to generation, from mother to daughter, from aunt to niece. Can it be an accident that the director and screenwriter for the newest version are both women? (To this day, its readership is almost exclusively female, although political strategist James Carville has confessed to a fondness for the book.)
The novel's longevity can be traced to its heroine, Jo March, Alcott's alter ego and a thoroughly modern character. Athletic and quick-tempered, Jo wants to make her way in the world as a writer. Her longing for independence was extraordinary for its time, making her a prototypical feminist in the eyes of some modern-day reviewers. She also was a protypical superwoman, juggling a career, husband and baby by the end of the book.
But before Jo settles down, she is a tomboy who prefers football and books to more feminine pursuits. She is forever getting into "scrapes" and shouting "Christopher Columbus!"
When her neighbor and would-be swain inquires after her heart's JTC desire, Jo replies saucily: "Genius; don't you wish you could give it to me, Laurie?" But when she has to turn down Laurie's marriage proposal -- for the contemporary reason that she does not love him romantically -- the scene is heart-breaking in its compassion for both characters.
Jo's sisters are sweet and virtuous, but not as fresh and surprising. Older sister Meg is content with her domestic lot. Sickly Beth is doomed. And Amy, although she grows gracefully from a snobbish child into an artistic young woman, can never be forgiven for marrying Laurie in Jo's stead.
No, everyone wants to be Jo. Actress Winona Ryder longed for the part, which helped to make the current film adaptation a reality. (Playing Jo March is evidence of a young woman's star power: The 1930s version had Katharine Hepburn in the role, while perky June Allyson did the honors in the 1950s.)
Local writer Rosemary Mahoney, who reread "Little Women" and visited the set of the Gillian Armstrong film, found her childhood love affair with the book somewhat diminished. But Jo was still appealing.
"I think I thought I was Jo," she says. "Jo holds up. All the characters hold up. The one thing Alcott did right was make those characters very constant."
At the Enoch Pratt Central Library, Selma K. Levi, head of the children's department, notes: "She's a modern woman -- cutting off that hair [to make money for her impoverished family], striking out on her own. I always liked Jo. None of the others have nearly the impact of Jo's character."
Sharon Hall, an 11-year-old at Germantown Elementary School in Annapolis, also liked Jo or "the second oldest one," as she described her. "I like to write, and I've written some poetry, and I thought she was interesting."
For budding female writers, Jo March is one of the oldest role models available in children's literature. Pulitzer Prize-winner Anna Quindlen, in an introduction for a newedition put out by the original publisher, Little, Brown and Company, declares: " 'Litte Women' changed my life."
She explains: "Jo is defined not by how she looks or who she dances with, but by what she does. She is a writer, and for generations of girls who hoped someday to do the same, Jo March . . . spoke of possibilities outside the circuit of feminine wiles and fashion consciousness."
Yes, everyone longs to be Jo. But Louisa May Alcott really was. The second daughter in a family of four girls, her life parallels Jo's neatly. Her sisters included sweet-natured Anna, sickly Elizabeth and artistic May. They even called their mother "Marmee."
In other ways, however, Alcott's life was far more interesting than Jo's. Her father, Amos Bronson Alcott, was part of the 19th century's transcendentalist movement, with its emphasis on spirituality and utopia. Distant and cool, he often said he hoped his daughters would comport themselves as "Little Women."
The family also knew the kind of genteel poverty in which the Marches lived. However, when Alcott published the first part of "Little Women," she settled all her family's debts. (Initially published in two parts, "Little Women" is now one volume, whose 500-odd pages may intimidate young readers. Its sequels, "Little Men" and "Jo's Boys," are more manageable in length.)
As the first readers waited for the second part, they besieged Alcott with ideas for how the March girls' lives should be resolved. One droll friend, noting the inevitability of marriages in the second part, suggested it be called "Wedding Marches."
Alcott was a reluctant matchmaker for Jo.
"Jo should have remained a literary spinster," she wrote a friend, "but so many enthusiastic young ladies wrote to me clamorously demanding that she should marry Laurie or somebody that I didn't dare to refuse & out of perversity went and made a funny match for her. I expect vials of wrath to be poured out upon my head, but rather enjoy the prospect."
The "funny match" is Professor Bhaer, an older man who lectures Jo on writing rubbish that sells -- another habit Louisa May Alcott had in common with her heroine. (A newly unearthed Alcott manuscript, "A Long Fatal Love Chase," features a Jo-like character who is stalked through Europe by her first lover.)
While Alcott bowed to her readers' wishes when it came to Jo'smarital state, she was happily single herself. Jo could have it all, but Alcott knew that such an arrangement was virtually impossible.
Jo, like Alcott, was a reluctant celebrity. Although Alcott had once hoped for the kind of fame accorded Charlotte Bronte, she found it burdensome. Later in life, she wrote a friend: "I wish you'd write an article on the rights of authors & try to make the public see that the books belong to them but not the peace, time, comfort and lives of the writers. It is a new kind of slavery."
But there was no revisionism when it came to "Little Women." Ten years after its publication, Alcott still insisted: "The publisher thought it flat, so did I, & neither hoped much for or from it. We found out our mistake, & since then, though I do not enjoy writing 'moral tales' for the young, I do it because it pays well."
Louisa May Alcott died March 6, 1888. She was 55 and had been supporting herself as a writer for most of her adult life, producing more than 270 stories, novels and sketches. The goal, in the beginning, had been the modest hope to earn $1,000 a year from her efforts. Because of "Little Women," however flat, she did far better than that.
As Jo might say: "Christopher Columbus!"