SOURCE: "Not to Be Read on Sunday," The Horn Book, Vol. XLIV, No. 5, October, 1968, pp. 521-26.

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...