[In the following essay, Russ examines the widespread appeal of Little Women one hundred years after its original publication.]

Nineteen sixty-eight seems a strange time to talk about Little Women, and I seem a strange choice to do the talking. Of course there is an obvious reason for the date: October 3, 1968, will make it a neat one hundred years since Little Women was first published—published because an editor, Thomas Niles, nagged, in a Boston gentleman's kind of way, at Louisa M. Alcott to write the book. "I think, Miss Alcott," he told her, "you could write a book for girls. I should like to see you try it." He had to ask her twice. Her swift reaction the first time was that she knew nothing about girls, that she understood boys better. Circumstances—her family's—were on Mr. Niles's side when he asked her the second time. Her family, who always lived on the edge of economic disaster, was teetering perilously then, and she agreed to try. So Louisa M. Alcott, who before that had saved the family she loved by writing wild tales of blood and thunder, rescued them this time by writing about them—rescued them and created immortality for them. And for herself.

But 1968 seems a strange year to talk about the books she sent Mr. Niles at Roberts Brothers (Little Women was originally two books), strange to talk about these books in this year of violence that has already seen the most terrifying of all the faces of violence—assassination—not once, but two times. To think, let alone to write, about a book remembered as a story of a loving New England family in the nineteenth century seems about as timely as a history of antimacassars.

And I seem a strange choice to be writing about it. Though I write some reviews of children's books, I am no authority on children's literature, am not equipped by degrees to evaluate Little Women academically, nor by temperament—I loved it too much when I was young to evaluate it dispassionately, loved it so much when I was a girl that Jo was the second most important person in my life.

She must have been loved by other girls, millions of other girls, for Jo's book—and Little Women is Jo's book—has survived one hundred years. Survived! It has flourished like a New England oak! There are no exact figures available. Publishers did not keep sales figures back in the nineteenth century; and Little, Brown and Company did not take it over from Roberts Brothers until 1898. And nowadays with the countless editions of Little Women around, both in hardback and paperback, a search for the sales figures for one year would be a five-year project.

But Augusta Baker, Coordinator of Children's Services of the New York Public Library, who is an authority, told me that the two most circulated titles on the New York City Public Library's shelves are The Diary of Anne Frank and Little Women.

And Virginia Haviland, head of the Children's Book Section of the Library of Congress, who is also an authority, sent me a list of the countries, and in some instances the languages, in which Little Women has been published. Listen to their names. Together they form a musical wreath around the world—Argentina, Belgium (Flemish), Brazil, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Egypt (Arabic), Eire, England, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India (Urdu), Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Norway, Persia, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, and Turkey.

Not everybody loves Little Women. Brigid Brophy didn't love it—she took six full columns in the New York Times Book Review to say why, ending her blast against sentimentality by calling it "a masterpiece, and dreadful," a blast which shot her readers straight to their bookshelves to reread their copies of Little Women.

Ernest Hemingway did not love the idea of it—in Paris, when he and this century were young, Hadley and he once asked me up to their flat. When I walked in with a copy of Ibsen's plays under my arm, Ernest put me down with "You're so full of young sweetness and light you ought to be carrying Little Women." (He had never read it.)

The unknown critic who wrote one of its first reviews didn't dislike Little Women, but did not announce the birth of a masterpiece with any ruffle of drums. "Louisa Alcott is a very spritely and fascinating writer, and her sister, May Alcott, always makes beautiful pictures to illustrate the books. Their books and stories are always interesting and instructive about everyday life. They are not religious books, should not be read on Sunday, and are not appropriate for the Sunday School. This is the character of the book before us. It is lively, entertaining, and not harmful."

Why did I love it? Why did all the millions of girls who have read it in the last hundred years love it? Why do all the girls who are reading it all around the world today love it? To find out, I reached for my copy of Little Women with its title page "Little Women or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy, by Louisa M. Alcott, with illustrations in color by Jessie Willcox Smith, Boston, Little Brown and Company, 1915," with its inscription on the fly leaf from the most important person in my life—"Lavinia Faxon—To a Little Woman—Father." And for the first time in fifty years, I read it straight through, from the very beginning—"'Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents,' grumbled Jo, lying on the rug"—to the very end, to the sunny afternoon at Plumfield, where all the Marches had gathered to celebrate Marmee's sixtieth birthday with presents and songs—"Touched to the heart, Mrs. March could only stretch out her arms as if to gather children and grandchildren to herself, and say, with face and voice full of motherly love, gratitude, and humility, 'Oh my girls, however long you may live, I never can wish you a greater happiness than this!'"

I read it all, and I found out, I found out why I loved it. I had a strong hunch I had found out why when I read earlier Cornelia Meigs's splendid biography of Miss Alcott, Invincible Louisa, and when I read Louisa M. Alcott: Her Life, Letters and Journals, edited by Ednah D. Cheney. I found out for sure when I reread Little Women. I loved it because Louisa M. Alcott was a rebel, with rebels for parents. I found out why other girls loved it—because Jo was a rebel, with rebels for parents. Not the rebels of destruction—they never threw a brick—but rebels who looked at the world as it was, saw the poverty, the inequality, the ignorance, the fear, and said, "It isn't good enough" and went to work to change it.

They did not attack poverty by buying a ticket to a charity ball at the Waldorf. Poverty was their neighbor, often their star boarder. Charity was no Lady Bountiful; charity was another name for compassion.

Mrs. Alcott ran an informal employment service, "a shelter," Louisa Alcott describes in her journal, "for lost girls, abused wives, friendless children, and weak or wicked men." In her journal Louisa tells how "One snowy Saturday night, when our wood was very low, a poor child came to beg a little, as the baby was sick and the father on a spree with all his wages. My mother hesitated at first, as we also had a baby. Very cold weather was upon us, and a Sunday to be got through before more wood could be had. My father said, 'Give half our stock, and trust in Providence; the weather will moderate, or wood will come.' Mother laughed, and answered in her cheery way, 'Well, their need is greater than ours, and if our half gives out we can go to bed and tell stories.'"

The Alcotts attacked inequality by working for Abolition. Louisa, who had a memory, so far back in her childhood that she couldn't remember where or when, of finding a slave hidden in the vast oven of one of the houses they lived in, wrote of a meeting to protest the return of a runaway slave, which she went to when she was nineteen—"I should be horribly ashamed of my country if this slave is taken back."

Louisa M. Alcott was among the first to work for suffrage for women. In an 1881 letter to Mr. Niles—"I can remember when Antislavery was in just the same state that Suffrage is now, and take more pride in the very small help we Alcotts could give than in all the books I ever wrote or ever shall write." Then in characteristic salty fashion she adds, "I, for one, don't want to be ranked among idiots, felons, and minors any longer, for I am none of the three, but very gratefully yours, L. M. A."

The Alcotts attacked ignorance with truth—truth they looked for constantly and found in the inward life, not in the established manners and mores of their time. Always with Ralph Waldo Emerson nearby to offer advice, encouragement, and practical help, they sought for truth. Louisa's father, Bronson Alcott, taught truth as he found it. He was one of the first teachers to respect his pupils and to trust their instincts as he respected and trusted the instincts of his own children. He found such joy in learning that to teach was a joyful experience, and he taught children that to learn was a joyful experience.

They attacked fear with faith. And laughter. When poverty threatened to change from a familiar who was a constant annoyance to have around, to an enemy who could destroy them, they routed him with faith. When Bronson Alcott came back from what we would now call a lecture tour, Louisa recorded in her journal, "In February Father came home. Paid his way but no more. A dramatic scene when he arrived in the night. We were waked by hearing the bell. Mother flew down crying 'My husband.' We rushed after her, and five white figures embraced the half frozen wanderer, who came in hungry, tired, cold and disappointed, but smiling bravely and as serene as ever. We fed and warmed and brooded over him, longing to ask if he had made any money, but no one did till little May said after he told all the pleasant things, 'Well, did people pay you?' Then with a queer look he opened his pocketbook and showed one dollar, saying with a smile that made our eyes fill, 'Only that. My overcoat was stolen and I had to buy a shawl. Many promises were not kept, and traveling is costly. But I've opened the way and in another year shall do better.' I shall never forget how beautifully Mother answered him, though the dear hopeful soul had built much on his success. With a beaming face she kissed him, saying, 'I'd call that doing very well. Since you are safely home, dear, we don't ask anything more.' Anna and I choked down our tears and took a little lesson in real love which we never forgot. Nor the look that the tired man and the tender woman gave one another. It was half tragic and half comic, for Father was very dirty and sleepy, and Mother in a big nightcap and funny old jacket."

And when death knocked uninvited at their door, they welcomed him, serene in their faith that death was not an enemy, but the darker brother of life.

Brigid Brophy was wrong about Little Women. A girl in Russia cries over Beth's death, not because it is sentimental, but because it is brave. And a girl in India cries when Jo refuses Laurie, because she realizes suddenly that life is not going to hold a neat, happy ending for her.

Ernest Hemingway was wrong about Little Women. If he had read Little Women, he would have realized that it is not "sweetness and light," it is stalwart proof of his definition of courage: grace under pressure.

Its early reviewer was wrong about Little Women, because if religion is living Faith, Hope and Charity every minute of your life, the Alcott-Marches were a truly religious family.

Above all, girls are right to love Little Women, every word of it, because it is a story about good people. And if there is one generality that is true (and it is the only generality I will ever make about them), it is that young people love goodness. And if there is one hope for us in 1968, the only one, it is that the young recognize the power of goodness, and the responsibility that goodness demands of men and women of good will—the responsibility to their brothers, the responsibility to look at the world as it is—at the poverty, the inequality, the ignorance, the fear—and to say "It isn't good enough" and go to work to change it.