Jo March appears to be Louisa May Alcott’s alter ego in the novel Little Women. Louisa May Alcott’s biography bears this idea out. Like the fictional character Jo, Alcott was considered a tomboy. On the Orchard House web site, the site of Alcott’s home, attests to her tomboyishness; no boy could be my friend till I had beaten him in a race, she [Louisa] claimed, and no girl if she refused to climb trees, leap fences…. Early in the first chapter of Little Women, Alcott introduces Jo as a tomboy, Poor Jo! It’s too bad, but it can’t be helped. So you must try to be contented with making your name boyish, and playing brother to us girls, said Beth (Alcott, Chapter 1). Another other obvious similarity between Alcott and Jo, is their love of writing, which goes hand in hand with both being bookworms (Alcott, Chapter 1). Alcott’s biography states that she spent her early days with visits to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s library and excursions into the nature with Henry David Thoreau (Louisa May Alcott). Alcott, using the pseudonym A.M. Barnard, wrote the sensational stories as did Jo in order to supplement the family income and both found joy in making their family’s life easier. In Kim Wells’ masters thesis, she describes the works as gothic potboilers filled with feminist femme fatales and smut (at least by Victorian standards). ”