SOURCE: "Little Women: The American Female Myth," in Sister's Choice: Tradition and Change in American Women's Writing, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1991, pp. 42-64.

In the following chapter from a critical study of American women's writing, Showalter considers the reasons for the sustained popularity of Alcott's Little Women among American female readers of diverse backgrounds.

In the eyes of many readers and critics, Louisa May Alcott's Little Women (1868) is 'the American female myth,' and Alcott's heroine Jo March has become the most influential figure of the independent and creative American woman.¹ Ardent testimonials to Alcott have come from women writers as diverse as Gertrude Stein and Adrienne Rich. 'I read Little Women a thousand times,' the novelist Cynthia Ozick recalls. 'Ten thousand. I am Jo in her "vortex," not Jo exactly, but some Jo-of-the-future.' In 1989, when American governors were asked to name their favourite childhood books, two...