The Annotated Little Women Read online

  1 Louisa May Alcott, “To Thomas Niles,” mid-July [?] 1868, The Selected Letters of Louisa May Alcott, p. 117.

  2 Louisa May Alcott, The Journals of Louisa May Alcott, p. 166.

  3 Louisa May Alcott, “Reflections of My Childhood,” in Alcott in Her Own Time, ed. Daniel Shealy, p. 34.

  4 Frederick L. H. Willis, Alcott Memoirs, in Alcott in Her Own Time, p. 177.

  5 Lurabel Harlow, Louisa May Alcott: A Souvenir, in Alcott in Her Own Time, p. 40.

  6 Bessie Holyoke, “[A Visit with Anna Alcott Pratt],” in Alcott in Her Own Time, p. 25.

  7 Nina Ames Frey, “Miss Clara and her Friend, Louisa,” in Alcott in Her Own Time, p. 229.

  8 Louisa May Alcott, “To Miss Churchill,” 25 December 1878, Selected Letters, p. 232.

  9 Louisa May Alcott, Journals, p. 179.

  10 Harlow, Alcott in Her Own Time, p. 40.

  11 Louisa May Alcott, Journals, p. 171.

  12 Louisa May Alcott, “To the Lukens Sisters,” 2 October [1874], Selected Letters, p. 185.

  13 Louisa May Alcott, “To Florence Hilton,” 13 March [1874], Selected Letters, p. 182.

  14 Louisa May Alcott, “To Maria S. Porter,” 4[?] March 1888, Selected Letters, p. 337.

  15 A. Bronson Alcott, “To Louisa May Alcott,” 29 November 1842, The Letters of A. Bronson Alcott, p. 93.

  16 Abigail May Alcott, “To Samuel J. May,” 29 February 1848, quoted in Eve LaPlante, Marmee and Louisa: The Untold Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Mother, p. 140.

  17 Louisa May Alcott, Journals, p. 55.

  18 A. Bronson Alcott, “To Junius S. Alcott,” 30 June 1842, Letters, p. 74.

  19 A. Bronson Alcott, “To Mrs. A. Bronson Alcott,” 16 August 1842, Letters, p. 90.

  20 John Matteson, Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father, p. 141.

  21 Louisa May Alcott, Journals, p. 47.

  22 Ibid., p. 59.

  23 Ibid., p. 55.

  24 Ibid., p. 59.

  25 A. Bronson Alcott, The Journals of Bronson Alcott, p. 173.

  26 A. Bronson Alcott, “To Anna, Louisa, Elizabeth, and May Alcott,” 15 July 1842, Letters, p. 83.

  27 Louisa May Alcott and Anna Alcott Pratt, Comic Tragedies, Written by “Jo” and “Meg” and Acted by the “Little Women,” p. 7.

  28 Anna Alcott Pratt, “A Letter from Miss Alcott’s Sister about ‘Little Women,’ ” in Alcott in Her Own Time, p. 18.

  29 Edward W. Emerson, “When Louisa Alcott Was a Girl,” in Alcott in Her Own Time, p. 95.

  30 A. Bronson Alcott, “To Anna, Louisa, Elizabeth, and May Alcott,” 15 July 1842, Letters, p. 83.

  31 Ibid.

  32 Ibid.

  33 Louisa May Alcott, “To Anna Alcott Pratt,” [after 17 December 1860], Selected Letters, p. 62.

  34 Lydia Hosmer Wood, “Beth Alcott’s Playmate: A Glimpse of Concord Town in the Days of Little Women,” in Alcott in Her Own Time, p. 167; Frederick L. H. Willis, Alcott Memoirs, in Alcott in Her Own Time, p. 181.

  35 Louisa May Alcott, Journals, p. 65

  36 Ibid., p. 69.

  37 Ibid., p. 67.

  38 Ibid.

  39 Ibid., p. 73.

  40 Ibid.

  41 A. Bronson Alcott, Journals, p. 77.

  42 A. Bronson Alcott, Letters, p. 798.

  43 Louisa May Alcott, Journals, p. 79.

  44 Ibid., p. 85.

  45 Ibid., p. 88.

  46 Matteson, Eden’s Outcasts, p. 237.

  47 Louisa May Alcott, Journals, p. 89.

  48 Ibid.

  49 Ibid.

  50 Louisa May Alcott, “To the Alcott Family,” 3 or 10 October 1858, Selected Letters, p. 34; Louisa May Alcott, Journals, p. 90.

  51 Louisa May Alcott, Journals, 91.

  52 Ibid, p. 85.

  53 A. Bronson Alcott, “To Abigail May Alcott,” 4 December 1858, Letters, p. 282.

  54 Louisa May Alcott, Journals, p. 95.

  55 Elizabeth Bancroft Schlesinger, “The Alcotts through Thirty Years: Letters to Alfred Whitman,” p. 364.

  56 Louisa May Alcott, “To Alfred Whitman,” 6 January 1869, Selected Letters, p. 120.

  57 Louisa May Alcott, “To Adeline May,” July [?] 1860, Selected Letters, p. 57.

  58 Louisa May Alcott, “To Miss Holmes,” 16 August 1872 [?], Selected Letters, p. 167; Julian Hawthorne, [“Memories of the Alcott Family”], in Alcott in Her Own Time, p. 199.

  59 Louisa May Alcott, Journals, p. 114.

  60 Ibid., 117.

  61 Louisa May Alcott. “To the Lukens Sisters,” 2 October [1874], Selected Letters, p. 185.

  62 Louisa May Alcott, Journals, p. 118.

  63 A. Bronson Alcott, Sonnets and Canzonets, p. 73.

  64 Louisa May Alcott, Journals, p. 124n.

  65 Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Experience,” in Essays and Lectures, p. 473.

  66 Louisa May Alcott, Moods, in The Portable Louisa May Alcott, ed. Elizabeth Lennox Keyser, pp. 168, 166.

  67 Ibid., p. 159.

  68 Ibid., p. 328.

  69 Louisa May Alcott, Journals, pp. 99, 103.

  70 Ibid., p 213.

  71 A. K. Loring, “To Louisa May Alcott,” n.d., MSS 6255, Papers of Louisa May Alcott, University of Virginia Special Collections.

  72 Louisa May Alcott, Moods, p. 157.

  73 Louisa May Alcott, Journals, p. 133.

  74 Ibid., p. 144.

  75 Ibid., p. 145.

  76 Louisa May Alcott, “My Boys,” in Aunt Jo’s Scrap-Bag: My Boys, Etc., pp. 27–28.

  77 Ibid., p. 34.

  78 Louisa May Alcott, Journals, p. 158.

  79 Ibid., p. 162.

  80 Louisa May Alcott, “Happy Women,” in L. M. Alcott: Signature of Reform, ed. Madeleine B. Stern, pp. 146–49.

  81 Louisa May Alcott, Journals, pp. 165–66.

  82 Louisa May Alcott, “To Thomas Niles,” mid July [?] 1868, Selected Letters, p. 117.

  83 Thomas Niles, “To Louisa May Alcott,” 25 July 1868, in Louisa May Alcott, Little Women: A Norton Critical Edition, ed. Anne K. Phillips and Gregory Eiselein, p. 418.

  84 Louisa May Alcott, Journals, p. 167.

  85 Ibid.

  86 Ibid.

  87 Ibid.

  88 Louisa May Alcott, “To Elizabeth Powell,” 20 March 1869, Selected Letters, p. 125.

  89 Louisa May Alcott, “To Samuel Joseph May,” 22 January 1869, Selected Letters, pp. 121–22.

  90 Louisa May Alcott, “To Elizabeth Powell,” 20 March 1869, Selected Letters, pp. 124–25.

  91 The Conference on Research in Income and Wealth, Trends in the American Economy in the Nineteenth Century, p. 457.

  92 Thomas Niles to Louisa May Alcott, 24 March 1870, quoted in Joel Myerson and Daniel Shealy, “The Sales of Louisa May Alcott’s Books,” p. 54.

  93 Anna Alcott Pratt to Alfred Whitman, 18 June 1871, quoted in Schlesinger, “The Alcotts through Thirty Years: Letters to Alfred Whitman,” p. 379.

  94 Louisa May Alcott, Journals, p. 182.

  95 Ibid.

  96 Ibid, p. 196.

  97 Ibid, p. 183.

  98 Ibid., p. 197.

  99 Ibid.

  100 Ibid., p. 177.

  101 Anna Alcott Pratt to Alfred Whitman, 15 May 1881, quoted in Schlesinger, “The Alcotts through Thirty Years: Letters to Alfred Whitman,” p. 383.

  102 Louisa May Alcott, Journals, p. 153.

  103 Louisa May Alcott, Journals, p. 188.

  104 Louisa May Alcott, Jo’s Boys, and How They Turned Out, p. 364.

  105 Ibid., p. 50.

  106 Matteson, Eden’s Outcasts, p. 423.

  Many consider Frank T. Merrill the greatest of Little Women’s many illustrators. Alcott herself wrote that he “deserve[d] a good penny for his work.” The pen-and-ink drawings that enliven this volume first appeared in an 1880 Roberts Brothers edition.

  Preface

  “Go then, my little Book, and show to all

  That entertain, and bid thee welcome shall,

&n
bsp; What thou dost keep close shut up in thy breast;

  And wish what thou dost show them may be blest

  To them for good, may make them choose to be

  Pilgrims better, by far, than thee or me.

  Tell them of Mercy; she is one

  Who early hath her pilgrimage begun.

  Yea, let young damsels learn of her to prize

  The world which is to come, and so be wise;

  For little tripping maids may follow God

  Along the ways which saintly feet have trod.”

  ADAPTED FROM JOHN BUNYAN1

  1. ADAPTED FROM JOHN BUNYAN. John Bunyan’s famed religious allegory, The Pilgrim’s Progress, occupied a special place in the lives of the Alcott family. Alcott’s father, Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888), called it his “dear, delightful book” and the dictionary by which he learned the English language. It was, he wrote, “one of the few [books] that gave me to myself. . . . [It] seems to chronicle my Identity.” Bronson accepted Bunyan’s belief that the physical world was essentially a divinely created symbol, to be observed for its spiritual, not its literal significance. He also absorbed deeply the book’s message of austere piety and self-denial, and he did his best to pass these tenets on to his children. Part One of The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) tells the story of Christian, who, inspired by an apocalyptic vision, flees the sinful City of Destruction and embarks on a quest for the Celestial City. The second part of The Pilgrim’s Progress (1684) is more pertinent to Part First of Little Women, as it concerns the adventures of Christian’s wife and their four children as they strive to conquer sin and find salvation in the patriarch’s absence. Christian’s children are boys, not girls. Nevertheless, Part Second of the allegory plainly asserts, as Part First does not, that women and children can and should actively pursue the moral good life. Alcott’s prefatory lines are an adaptation of a portion of the poem with which Bunyan began Part Two of The Pilgrim’s Progress. The original lines read:

  Go then, my little Book and shew to all

  That entertain, and bid thee welcome shall,

  What thou shalt keep close, shut up from the rest,

  And wish what thou shalt shew them may be blest

  To them for good, may make them chuse to be

  Pilgrims, better by far, then [sic] thee or me.

  The four March sisters, as imagined by artist Jessie Willcox Smith in 1915.

  CHAPTER I.

  Playing Pilgrims.2

  “CHRISTMAS won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.

  “It’s so dreadful to be poor!” sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress.

  “I don’t think it’s fair for some girls to have lots of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all,” added little Amy, with an injured sniff.

  “We’ve got father and mother, and each other, anyhow,” said Beth, contentedly,2 from her corner.

  The four young faces on which the firelight shone brightened at the cheerful words, but darkened again as Jo said sadly,—

  “We haven’t got father, and shall not have him for a long time.” She didn’t say “perhaps never,” but each silently added it, thinking of father far away, where the fighting was.3

  Nobody spoke for a minute; then Meg said in an altered tone,—

  “You know the reason mother proposed not having any presents this Christmas, was because it’s going to be a hard winter for every one; and she thinks we ought not to spend money for pleasure, when our men are suffering so in the army. We can’t do much, but we can make our little sacrifices, and ought to do it gladly. But I am afraid I don’t;” and Meg shook her head, as she thought regretfully of all the pretty things she wanted.

  “But I don’t think the little we should spend would do any good. We’ve each got a dollar, and the army wouldn’t be much helped by our giving that. I agree not to expect anything from mother or you, but I do want to buy Undine and Sintram4 for myself; I’ve wanted it so long,” said Jo, who was a bookworm.

  “I planned to spend mine in new music,” said Beth, with a little sigh, which no one heard but the hearth-brush and kettle-holder.

  “I shall get a nice box of Faber’s drawing pencils; I really need them,” said Amy, decidedly.5

  “Mother didn’t say anything about our money, and she won’t wish us to give up everything. Let’s each buy what we want, and have a little fun; I’m sure we grub hard enough to earn it,” cried Jo, examining the heels of her boots in a gentlemanly manner.6

  “I know I do,—teaching those dreadful children nearly all day, when I’m longing to enjoy myself at home,” began Meg, in the complaining tone again.7

  “You don’t have half such a hard time as I do,” said Jo. “How would you like to be shut up for hours with a nervous, fussy old lady,8 who keeps you trotting, is never satisfied, and worries you till you’re ready to fly out of the window or box her ears?”

  “It’s naughty to fret,—but I do think washing dishes and keeping things tidy is the worst work in the world. It makes me cross; and my hands get so stiff, I can’t practise good a bit.” And Beth looked at her rough hands with a sigh that any one could hear that time.

  “I don’t believe any of you suffer as I do,” cried Amy; “for you don’t have to go to school with impertinent girls, who plague you if you don’t know your lessons, and laugh at your dresses, and label your father if he isn’t rich, and insult you when your nose isn’t nice.”

  “If you mean libel I’d say so, and not talk about labels, as if pa was a pickle-bottle,” advised Jo, laughing.

  “I know what I mean, and you needn’t be ‘statirical’ about it. It’s proper to use good words, and improve your vocabilary,” returned Amy, with dignity.

  “Don’t peck at one another, children. Don’t you wish we had the money papa lost when we were little, Jo? Dear me, how happy and good we’d be, if we had no worries,” said Meg, who could remember better times.9

  “You said the other day you thought we were a deal happier than the King children, for they were fighting and fretting all the time, in spite of their money.”

  “So I did, Beth. Well, I guess we are; for though we do have to work, we make fun for ourselves, and are a pretty jolly set, as Jo would say.”

  “Jo does use such slang words,” observed Amy, with a reproving look at the long figure stretched on the rug. Jo immediately sat up, put her hands in her apron pockets, and began to whistle.

  “Don’t, Jo; it’s so boyish.”

  “That’s why I do it.”

  “I detest rude, unlady-like girls.”

  “I hate affected, niminy piminy chits.”

  “Birds in their little nests agree,”10 sang Beth, the peace-maker, with such a funny face that both sharp voices softened to a laugh, and the “pecking” ended for that time.

  “Really, girls, you are both to be blamed,” said Meg, beginning to lecture in her elder sisterly fashion. “You are old enough to leave off boyish tricks, and behave better, Josephine. It didn’t matter so much when you were a little girl; but now you are so tall, and turn up your hair, you should remember that you are a young lady.”

  “I ain’t! and if turning up my hair makes me one, I’ll wear it in two tails till I’m twenty,” cried Jo, pulling off her net, and shaking down a chestnut mane. “I hate to think I’ve got to grow up and be Miss March, and wear long gowns, and look as prim as a China-aster. It’s bad enough to be a girl, any way, when I like boy’s games, and work, and manners. I can’t get over my disappointment in not being a boy, and it’s worse than ever now, for I’m dying to go and fight with papa, and I can only stay at home and knit like a poky old woman;” and Jo shook the blue army-sock till the needles rattled like castanets,11 and her ball bounded across the room.

  “Poor Jo; it’s too bad! But it can’t be helped, so you must try to be contented with making your name boyish,12 and playing brother to us girls,” said Beth, stroking the rough head at her knee with a hand that all the dish-washing and
dusting in the world could not make ungentle in its touch.

  “As for you, Amy,” continued Meg, “you are altogether too particular and prim. Your airs are funny now, but you’ll grow up an affected little goose if you don’t take care. I like your nice manners, and refined ways of speaking, when you don’t try to be elegant; but your absurd words are as bad as Jo’s slang.”

  “If Jo is a tom-boy, and Amy a goose, what am I, please?” asked Beth, ready to share the lecture.

  “You’re a dear, and nothing else,” answered Meg, warmly; and no one contradicted her, for the “Mouse” was the pet of the family.

  As young readers like to know “how people look,” we will take this moment to give them a little sketch of the four sisters, who sat knitting away in the twilight, while the December snow fell quietly without, and the fire crackled cheerfully within. It was a comfortable old room, though the carpet was faded and the furniture very plain, for a good picture or two hung on the walls, books filled the recesses, chrysanthemums and Christmas roses bloomed in the windows, and a pleasant atmosphere of home-peace pervaded it.

  Margaret, the eldest of the four, was sixteen, and very pretty, being plump and fair, with large eyes, plenty of soft brown hair, a sweet mouth, and white hands, of which she was rather vain. Fifteen-year old Jo was very tall, thin and brown,13 and reminded one of a colt; for she never seemed to know what to do with her long limbs, which were very much in her way. She had a decided mouth, a comical nose, and sharp gray eyes, which appeared to see everything, and were by turns fierce, funny, or thoughtful. Her long, thick hair was her one beauty; but it was usually bundled into a net, to be out of her way. Round shoulders had Jo, big hands and feet, a fly-away look to her clothes, and the uncomfortable appearance of a girl who was rapidly shooting up into a woman, and didn’t like it.14 Elizabeth,—or Beth, as every one called her,—was a rosy, smooth-haired, bright-eyed girl of thirteen, with a shy manner, a timid voice, and a peaceful expression, which was seldom disturbed. Her father called her “Little Tranquillity,” and the name suited her excellently; for she seemed to live in a happy world of her own, only venturing out to meet the few whom she trusted and loved. Amy, though the youngest, was a most important person, in her own opinion at least. A regular snow maiden, with blue eyes, and yellow hair curling on her shoulders; pale and slender, and always carrying herself like a young lady mindful of her manners.15 What the characters of the four sisters were, we will leave to be found out.16