Revered in Film and Feminism

A children's classic can be described as a book so inviting that a young reader wants to escape into the world it creates. By that definition, Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, an account of four sisters living in Concord, Massachusetts, during the 1860s, is immortal. The author drew on her own impoverished childhood as a daughter of Bronson Alcott, a feckless member of the Concord enlightenment. Generations of girls have yearned to join the March household, and they remember the story's high points better than crises of their own lives.

What other 19th century novel that aims to teach girls conventional morals and decorum has been so enshrined in the feminist honor roll? In Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, Simone de Beauvoir recalls it fondly; of course, she identified with the bold, artistic Jo. In a 1983 essay, feminist Nina Auerbach suavely co-opts Alcott, concentrating on Marmee's counsel against materialism and Jo's determination to be unconventional.

Hollywood claimed the story first in 1918 with a silent version and then in 1933 with a triumphant adaptation directed by George Cukor and starring Katharine Hepburn at her warrior-goddess best. A 1949 remake is remembered chiefly because it featured Elizabeth Taylor as Amy, wearing a blond wig.

For its film, Columbia has made sure there will be new editions of the some 40 that are in print now -- as well as character dolls of the Concord girls, period clothing from Lanz, antique-style jewelry at J.C. Penney and baskets of scented products from Crabtree & Evelyn. The Alcotts would be in awe of every item. They had few possessions, and their diet consisted mostly of the "aspiring" vegetables -- grown aboveground -- that papa Bronson approved of.