Little Women: An Annotated Edition ed. by Daniel Shealy (review)

Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women (1868/69) continues to attract critical attention, evidenced not only by a wealth of scholarship but also by numerous scholarly editions by Broadview (2001), Norton (2004), and the Library of America (2005). The market might seem sated; however, the Belknap Press of Harvard has produced a spectacular new edition that will have Alcott scholars and fans enthusiastically making room on their shelves. Editor Daniel Shealy draws on his extensive knowledge of Alcott’s life and works to create an informative, entertaining, and aesthetically pleasing volume. Having co-edited Alcott’s Selected Letters (1987) and Journals (1989), and having produced many other substantive contributions to Alcott scholarship, among them Alcott in Her Own Time (2005) and Little Women Abroad: The Alcott Sisters’ Letters from Europe, 1870–1871 (2008), he is the ideal editor for this project.

In his Introduction, Shealy draws on Alcott’s life, letters, and journals to characterize the genesis and content of her novel, attributing its popularity in part to its “more common sense than religious” morality (4) as well as its nostalgia. He surveys contemporary reviews and acknowledges the numerous stage, film, and television adaptations inspired by Alcott’s best-seller, as well as other Little Women artifacts. In his “Note on the Text,” he situates Alcott’s gift for “captur[ing] the realistic speech and language of nineteenth-century American youth” (xi) within contemporary anxieties about the use of slang and the increasing influence of non-native speakers of English. Those concerns eventually prompted Alcott’s publishers to revise and standardize the text for the 1880 “Regular” edition, which Shealy acknowledges throughout the volume.

In some annotated editions, readers may find some notes to be superfluous. Here, however, Shealy’s notes are interesting and substantive, incorporating relevant biographical information along with helpful word etymologies and phrase origins, explanations of the text’s literary allusions, and cultural contexts. Readers will better understand why Amy yearned specifically for Faber’s colored pencils, what characterized nineteenth-century recipes for pickled limes, and how medical treatises document the cause, symptoms, treatment, and nineteenth-century outbreaks of scarlet fever. The notes reflect the editor’s evident affinity for nineteenth-century literature and culture.

The volume benefits from its publisher’s commitment to production quality. Sturdy, clad in a red binding that aligns with the red ink used for notes, and pleasing in appearance throughout, the oversize hardcover volume incorporates visuals from the 1933, 1949, and 1994 feature films (including Elizabeth Taylor as Amy with a clothespin on her nose—no Gabriel Byrne as Professor Bhaer, alas). May Alcott’s and Hammatt Billings’ illustrations from the first editions are represented, as are Frank Merrill’s from the 1880 illustrated edition, along with depictions by artists such as Barbara Cooney, Norman Rockwell, Tasha Tudor, and Jessie Willcox Smith, among others. Portraits of the Alcotts and other relevant figures of the era accompany the text, along with various Concord sites. Readers see what a cabinet piano looked like and learn that Alcott’s own “mood pillow” rests on a couch in the living room at Orchard House. Shealy has a special affinity for May Alcott, and several of her paintings complement the chapters, which detail Amy’s “Artistic Attempts” and her letters to her family from Europe. Throughout, Shealy has provided a rich and rewarding apparatus for enjoying and learning more about Alcott’s text.

Scholars will appreciate the way that Shealy acknowledges the works of other critics and places them in proximity to each other. For example, addressing Jo’s desire to be more directly involved in the war effort, Shealy cites not only Michelle Abate’s treatise on tomboys but also Madeleine B. Stern’s earlier scholarship on “the complexities of female power” (qtd. in Shealy 40). He cites a range of Alcott scholars throughout the volume, including Elizabeth Keyser, Sarah Elbert, Judith Fetterley, Roberta Seelinger Trites, John Mattison, and others, and he also draws from such diverse resources as Emily Thornwell...