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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Cbs Brings Louisa May Alcott’s First Novel To Screen

Jennifer Bowles Associated Press

“The Inheritance” isn’t your typical television movie.

Sure, it’s got enough lust, intrigue and deceit to rival the best of the nighttime soaps. And it attracted a bevy of TV stars, including Meredith Baxter, Cari Shayne and Thomas Gibson.

But it’s the origin of the script that sets it apart from the usual TV fare.

The script is based on a recently unearthed manuscript believed to be Louisa May Alcott’s first novel, written when she was 17, years before the publication of her best-known book “Little Women.”

The movie airs Sunday at 9 p.m. on CBS (KREM-Channel 2 in Spokane). It’s rated TV-G.

Set against the backdrop of East Coast aristocracy in 19th-century Massachusetts, the plot revolves around Edith Adelon (Shayne, formerly of “Party of Five”), an orphan taken in by the wealthy Hamilton family and employed as a companion for the Hamilton’s daughter.

Edith falls in love with a handsome, aristocratic stranger James Percy (Gibson of “Chicago Hope”), but believes he is unobtainable by someone of her lesser social stature. Plus, Edith has to contend with the jealousy of a Hamilton cousin who accuses her of a crime she did not commit.

The 166-page manuscript of “The Inheritance” was found by Daniel Shealy, associate professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and Joel Myerson, research professor of American literature at the University of South Carolina.

They discovered it at Harvard University’s Houghton Library in 1987 while gathering materials for a project on Alcott’s letters.

Pasted inside the front cover of the handwritten manuscript, the size of a student’s notebook, is a piece of paper saying, “My first novel, written at 17, High Street, Boston.” The year was 1849.

“I can’t tell you the surprise and the excitement we felt as we turned the cover and saw that first page,” Shealy said. “We knew that this was something special.”

Previously, Alcott’s first novel was thought to be “Moods,” copyrighted in 1865.

Some scholars believe “The Inheritance” is the novel Jo March was writing in “Little Women.” Shealy says that’s a possibility but not something he can confirm. He also doesn’t know whether Alcott submitted it to a publisher.

But “The Inheritance,” is “a good novel,” Shealy says. “It already shows her ability to develop plot and her ability to develop characterization. It is very similar to many of her early stories from the 1850s.”

The setting was changed from England to the United States for “relatability reasons,” Meurer says. The character of Henry Hamilton (Tom Conti) was added to make a plot twist more believable, and Edith’s passion for horses was elevated to bring the story outside of the mansion.

Shealy has no problem with the alterations.

“Once a book goes into film it goes into a different medium and I understand the medium of film has to do things that would help the story along that doesn’t necessarily appear in print,” Shealy says. “The directors take a work and put their own creative stamp on that work and that’s fine.”