A question about Little Women.

[CurlewKate]

That scene at the beginning where they each find a book under their pillow. What book is it? I ask because I have always thought one thing-and I discover my best bookish friend thinks something else….

@CurlewKate I had to ask the internet as I thought it was PP but I couldn't say why. The internet says

Direct references in the text - "Do you remember how you used to play Pilgrim's Progress when you were little things? Nothing delighted you more than to... travel from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City."

Thematic Chapter Titles - Louisa May Alcott structured the entire first half of the novel around the plot of Bunyan's book. Many of the chapter titles are direct references to locations or characters from The Pilgrim's Progress

Chapter 6: "Beth Finds the Palace Beautiful"
Chapter 8: "Jo Meets Apollyon"
Chapter 9: "Meg Goes to Vanity Fair"
Chapter 13: "Castles in the Air" (referencing the Doubting Castle)

Epigraph, in LW he preface usually contains a poem adapted directly from John Bunyan. It begins: "Go then, my little Book, and show to all... That entertain, and bid thee welcome shall... may make them choose to be Pilgrims better, by far, than thee or me."

Why This Book?
The gift is a reference to a game the girls played as children called "Playing Pilgrims," where they would put "burdens" (bags of old clothes) on their backs and travel through their house from the "City of Destruction" (the cellar) to the "Celestial City" (the attic). Marmee gives them the books to remind them that, even though they are now older and facing the real hardships of the Civil War era, they can still find strength by treating life's difficulties as part of a meaningful journey.

I vividly remember that each book has its own colour tailored to each girl and I remember wanting that so badly for myself, to reach under my pillow and find a book. We used the local library as we were poor so bought books were a luxury item.

Well preachiness was endemic in books written for children at the time. At least the March girls had some fun as well as all the moral stuff.

Absolutely. It's the gospels because her contemporary audience would instantly know that.

In the (lengthy) introduction to Paradise Lost John Milton writes "Until one Greater Man..."

He doesn't have to add "Which is Jesus, by the way, in case anyone was wondering."

Alcott was writing from (and to) a profoundly Christian perspective.

I understand the joy of a book under the pillow . Like the poster Laurasbestbag books were a luxury. My best Xmas present ever I think was a bag of second hand books from my df. My mother was disgusted but I still have them and with a more comfortable lifestyle I try to buy books most days but Kindle as I can’t read small print.

Nothing the Internet has come up with there says it is PP though. It's just about the fact that PP is mentioned elsewhere a lot.

The gospels have chapters. PP doesn't have chapters. If they are reading a chapter of the book every day, it is not PP.

I know what you mean about owning and treasuring a little book, as a child, though!

I got a little version of the gospels with a coloured cover for my first communion back in the day. We had a house full of books and several bibles. It was my book in a way the others weren't - it lived by my bed, not in the living room. I was happy with it and treasured it because I was brought up in a culture which valued it. Louisa May Alcott made no secret of the fact that her heroines were devout Christians so I find the whole scenario plausible and unremarkable.

@belleager I too was raised in a devout Catholic house and I think every child preparing for their first Holy Communion receives their own bible and rosary beads, we all did. It was treasured on the bookcase in my bedroom with the few books we owned.

I believe PP was a chapter book by the time LMA wrote LW. The original PP was written in 1678. Again, from the internet, to make the very long PP more readable it was divided into chapters and became a staple for study and Sunday school. A generic date of early 1800s is given for the chapter books but the Religious Tract Society (the hallmark of Christian respectability) published date for PP is around 1832 or possibly before. They specifically targeted children.

It has been a long time since I read LW but it has never left me.

Nope. Nothing there proves it’s PP.

That is interesting about the chapter version and something I should take into consideration, thanks.

I just can't see description of the best life lived as meaning anything except the life of Christ, though, for Louisa May Alcott.

This is spot on. (And also the imaginary Milton line made me cackle.)

Not RTFT but in the edition I have the first chapter is called Playing Pligrims.

Marmee says:' "Do you remember when you used to play PP......it is play we are playing all the time...Now my little pilgrims, suppose you begin again, not in play, but in earnest....".
The girls are sad about their absent father: "We were in the Slough of Despond tonight, and Mother came and pulled us out as Help did in the book. We ought to to have our roll of directions, like Christian....".
"Look under your pillows, Christmas morning, and you will find your guide book, replied Mrs March.

A Merry Christmas: "Jo felt it was a true guide-book for any pilgrim going on the long journey".

I's as clear as it can be that "Pilgrims Progress" is what is meant.

I find the "best life that was ever lived" baffling, though Christian does win through to the Celestial City against temptations, which is sort of the point.

It's, not I's. I'm not Ali G.

@echt for me, I would say those quotes point strongly towards it being the Gospels - that Marmee is explicitly moving them away from PP.

I agree - that strongly suggests to gospels to me, not PP.

No, I agree, that's more evidence it's not PP.

We ought to to have our roll of directions, like Christian....".
"Look under your pillows, Christmas morning, and you will find your guide book, replied Mrs March.

Christian's 'guide book' in PP isn't PP itself. The point is that life is a pilgrimage - which is the central message of PP - and the guide book to it is the Gospels, 'the guide book for any pilgrim going on the long journey'.

That seems quite unequivocally to be indicating the Gospels. PP was a book they enjoyed and played at when they were children.

And if someone talks about 'reading a chapter every morning/day', they mean the Bible, in my experience.

The preface for "Little Women" references Pilgrim's Progress:

https://americanliterature.com/author/louisa-may-alcott/book/little-women/preface

Christian's 'guide book' in PP isn't PP itself

How could it be? What the quotation from LW say is: "we ought to have our roll of directions, like Christian". Those directions are not books in PP, but they are in LW.

Echt - I think your info is proving exactly the opposite of what you think you’re proving. PP serves several purposes in the novel- a game, a metaphor, a way to talk about their feelings and to look back and forward in their lives, but it’s not a guide to living the best life ever lived in the way that the pious Marmee would wish to guide/indoctrinate her children into quiet contemplation of their own behaviours.

And I think the preface is LMA sending her book into the world to teach its moral and spiritual messages to the ‘pilgrims’ who read it.

Yes, that's sort of the point.

I did a quick google for nineteenth century religious writing, and you find the sort of language Alcott is using to describe the Bible, or the Gospels, everywhere.

In 1887 in Philadelphia, James Buel published a popular illustrated companion to the Bible and called it 'The New Beautiful Story'.

About a decade later the American writer Ellen White repeatedly refers to the Bible as 'the true guide-book' in 'The Present Truth'.

In 1886, a Colerado newspaper of 1886 describes how an evangelical preacher thought the Bible was the 'best story' for children: https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/ch154-chambers-gallery christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/ch154-chambers-gallery]]]]

but it’s not a guide to living the best life ever lived in the way that the pious Marmee would wish to guide/indoctrinate her children into quiet contemplation of their own behaviours
How do you infer that?

The references to PP prior to Christmas show that the book is PP, as do later chapters.

Chapters: Jo Meets Apployon
Meg Goes to Vanity Fair.

No, they don’t. They show that LMA is using it as a motif throughout, to structure the novel and support its message. Nobody is disputing that there are plenty of references to PP, but that doesn’t prove that the books are PP. It’s not as clear cut as that.

I always read it that the books were Bibles/New Testaments/Gospels. I think LMA would have thought that obvious and not in need of spelling out to her readers

I feel the same way about Mr March - I would not be quite so forgiving. There’s a reference in the book to Meg remembering how things were before, which is perhaps meant to explain why she hankers after ‘nice things’.

I remember that when I first read the book as a teen, I didn’t like the older Amy and her ‘shallow’ insistence on marrying well, but I later realised that she feels the pressure to marry well so she can support the rest of the family. Aunt March says this very clearly to Amy in the 2019 film, but I can’t remember if she does the same in the books.