Meet Me in St. Louis

by Sally Benson

Stage adaptation of the novel by Sally Benson.

It's rare for a play to capture truly a special moment in time, a particular moment in the lives of some real people. What makes this play so exceptional is not only that it does this so beautifully but that it's done with fun, excitement, and some broad comedy scenes that often stop the show with laughter! Four attractive sisters are all blazing with excitement over the wonderful World's Fair that is about to open right there in St. Louis. The girls are also in a state about the love life of their only brother, whom they suspect of ditching his sweet hometown girl for a snob from the East. In the midst of the sisters' humorous maneuvers to rule (or ruin) their brother's new romance, Father finally breaks in with his announcement. He's been offered a better job in New York! This will mean leaving their home in St. Louis and missing the fair! At this, the girls unite for action. A most popular and charming play!

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Classics, Historical, Plays, Christmas, American

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1941

About the author

Sally Benson was an American author of short stories and screenplays. She was born Sara Smith in St. Louis, Missouri, but moved to New York City late in her childhood. After graduating from Horace Mann School, she married Reynolds "Babe" Benson and began publishing short stories. She is best known for her semi-autobiographical collections Meet Me in St. Louis and Junior Miss, each first published as a series of 12 short stories in The New Yorker. She died in Woodland Hills, California, in 1972.

Reviews

[Katherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are times when a film does a more enjoyable job with a book than the book does for itself. "Meet Me in Saint Louis" is one of the great old movie musicals, and probably provided the best performance ever given by Judy Garland. The book, on the other hand, is nothing extraordinary in the genre of happy-old-time-family books that aimed to assuage the anxieties of war time America.

But it does provide one of the most authentic film formats for people believably bursting into song. People did sing pop songs out loud then, and the principal family entertainment, in my grandmother's home (she was 16 in 1903) was gathering at the piano and singing, or doing vaudeville skits in costumes thrown together from Aggie and David's clothes. (They used their parents' names, not "Dad",etc. Perhaps that was peculiar.)

Sally Benson is a very capable and enjoyable writer, but the teenage girls she portrays are vain and vapid to a point that may set a modern reader's teeth on edge and the wildness of six-year-old Tootie, rendered on the page, lacks the charm of the Oscar winning performance turned in by seven-year-old Margaret O'Brien.

The value of the book to a 21st century reader is probably its accuracy regarding the safety and freedom of children in 1903 -- a thing sadly lost now. Tootie rides all over town in the iceman's wagon. Mrs. Smith, when asked where her children are, can calmly answer, "How should I know?" (Even in my own childhood my mother seldom knew where I was and had no cause for worry -- I was out alone exploring construction site mazes of 2"x4"s and no one ever bothered me -- it's a wonder I didn't become an architect.)

I recommend "Meet Me in Saint Louis" for anyone doing research on upper middle class family life in America at the beginning of the 20th century. And to anyone who would like to have a rather sobering perspective on the rise of anxiety and loss of common freedoms among the moderately well-to-do in the past hundred years. On the other hand, this book is a good reminder that women now have a world of opportunity to choose from for their futures, and no longer must desperately attract men for that one-and-only important decision of their lives; saying "Yes" to a suitable marriage partner.

[Elisabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ah, this is charming. Anyone who knows the movie will find most of the familiar incidents from it, though they were switched around and condensed somewhat for the screenplay; but I felt like the book had a much more authentic, homey feel to it. Nothing seems so glossy and expensive as it looked in the movie. Rose and Esther are no glamorous movie stars, but a couple of boy-crazy teenagers. In the book you get a much clearer sense that, in spite of living in a three-story house with a maid, the Smiths are very much an average middle-class family, who wear hand-me-downs and have to be careful about making ends meet, and do their own housework and cooking with the help of one very down-to-earth maid-of-all-work. The Edwardian era is a favorite period of mine, and perhaps what I enjoyed most about this book is the way that author Benson sketches for us, in relatively few words, the sights, sounds and smells of a pleasant suburban neighborhood and the little details of furnishings, clothes, food, and other aspects of everyday life.

(But Agnes and Tootie really are terrible little brats, though!)

[Victoria Blacke · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh my! It is not often I say I prefer the movie but...this novel lacked the warmth and endearing family feeling the movie conveyed. I was startled at how down-right nasty they could be to one another! While it was interesting to finally read it and experience it I cannot necessarily recommend it to anyone. If you love the movie, keep that love and warmth close...and skip the book!

[Ginny Messina · Rating 5 out of 5]

So charming! I’ve loved the movie for as long as I can remember so don’t know why I never got around to reading the book until now. The movie captured all of the characters in the book so perfectly and I didn’t mind at all that the plot was different. This is a wonderful comfort read.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a light and enjoyable read for the most part. The book is divided into the months between June 1903 and May 1904. The "chapter" months are very episodic, almost like a series of short stories, as there aren't any strong arcs to speak of. The characters are consistent but a little shallow; Esther and Rose, especially, don't ever move past their boy-crazed silliness; but at least they keep us entertained. Grandpa Prophater was my favorite, as he is the most "aware" of the hilarity of this family. One of the scenes I found most interesting was when Mrs. Smith said she could understand why someone would want only one child, creating an ABSOLUTE UPROAR in the house from her five kids. Mr. Smith explains she's upset because she can't care for all five kids the way she wishes she could, but there's a subtext of real frustration in Mrs. Smith's pronouncement, as well. No matter how hard she tries, life is always uncertain and keeps her anxious about taking care of everyone.
So. Light and enjoyable read, but with some darker undertones that kept it interesting.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many of the stories in "Meet Me in St. Louis" were originally published in the New Yorker (Sally Benson - often writing under a pen name - was a regular contributor) before being compiled into a book. The novel, written in 1944, takes place from June 1903 to May 1904, the opening of the St. Louis World's Fair. The book is out-of-print, not available as an e-book, and not at any of the libraries in my area, but it's easy to find a used copy online. Personally, I like the book better than the movie. It is nostalgic without the romantic sentimentality of the movie. Some readers may miss this, others, like me, might find it refreshing. Benson's characters are sometimes just not that nice. They gossip, argue, play tricks, and are generally human. Unlike the movie, it's mom that has the temper and promises the whippings. Tootie, and Agnes to a lesser extent, is a hellion who seems destined for the reformatory. The two older girls are man-crazy coquettes who eat raw chicken hearts to determine who they will marry (I wonder why they left that out of the movie) and perfect poses that accentuate their "innocent" charms. Grandpa, a Civil War veteran who was a POW held in Andersonville, seems to be the real heart of the family. The father is a less present character, perhaps representing the role of the father in an early 20th century family.

We are often told about how we have lost our way as a society, we spoil our children letting them get away with murder. We've lost our morals and values. Reading books like "Meet Me in St. Louis" remind us that maybe we aren't so different. Tootie and Agnes get away with murder. The children, unsupervised, are sometimes cruel and destructive with no repercussions. The older girls, with parental permission, hold a party when the parents are out. Unlike the movie, the party consists of the only two girls and six young men, not a ratio most of us with teenagers would encourage. Lon, the only son, spends his whole month's university allowance on a moking and shaving kit. And back in the day, Mrs. Smith was the kind of young lady "who could kick my hat off" after having some sherry.

[QNPoohBear · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like me, you may know and love the 1944 movie starring Judy Garland. The movie was based on short stories by Sally Benson about her childhood in St. Louis. In 1942 the stories were compiled and published in book form as Meet Me in St. Louis.

The book follows the lives of the various members of the Smith family, a well-to-do family in St. Louis in 1903-1904. There's Mother (Anna), Father (Lonnie), Lon (18), Rose (17), Esther/Judy Garland (16), Agnes (12), Tootie (6), Grandpa, Katie the cook and assorted pets and dolls. Rose is the beauty of the family and Esther is described as small, dark, dimpled with a pretty singing voice. Rose and Esther are boy crazy and can't wait to find the right man to marry. They find most of the boys they know boring and prefer a bit more mystery surrounding their crushes. They also crush on matinee idols and heroes. Agnes can be prim and proper but she's also pretty wild. Tootie is bloodthirsty, naughty and completely wild. Her favorite activity is killing her dolls and burying them. The whole city is looking forward to the World's Fair in the spring. The Smiths are a close-knit family and love each other despite their differences.

The book is pretty much like the movie but lacks the charm of the musical numbers. It also lacks the central romance of the movie. Each chapter revolves around a month instead of a season like the movie. There are a few other differences too.

It's well worth a read for any fan of the classic movie.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another book that Hollywood improved.

Like most everyone else, I read this book after seeing the '44 classic starring Judy Garland. I fell in love with the movie, and wanted to fall in love with the book. Unfortunately, the book really needs the movie's added glamor and allure and whole better ending. Whether or not the family moves to New York is brought up and decided against in one chapter! Agnes and not Tootie is "the most horrible" at Halloween. John Truitt (Esther's love interest) and Warren Sheffield (Rose's) are not in the book, and so the Christmas dance is comparatively unimportant. So without Christmas and staying in St. Louis, the climax sort of blahs out. Just like real life, of course, but that too makes watching (or re-watching) the movie that much more fun.

The book stands alone okay, but gee whiz, if you have a choice ....

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think most people pick up this book because they enjoyed the 1940s film adaptation. And I was among those people. I was pleasantly surprised to see a lot of familiar scenes and characters, and happy that my favorite of the Smith family (Agnes) was still enjoyable. But there was a certain flightiness to the characters and plot that surprised me; Esther and Rose, in particular, were far more shallow in the book.

I loved the format. Little vignettes focusing on every month up to the fair was a delightful way to enjoy the family (and a fascinating comparison to the film's seasonal approach). And I felt that the period was caught through description and action, rather than an informational dump.

It wasn't great literature, but it was a quick, fun read. I'm glad I went to the effort to find the book.

[Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disclaimer : I have never seen the Judy Garland movie. So I approached this book without that prior knowledge.

The book reads as a series of vignettes about the life of the Smith family, and I believe it was originally serialized in a magazine. That would explain the absence of story arc and the essentially iterative nature of the stories. Really what it comes down to is this : the Smith family are a middle-class family in St Louis in 1903-1904. Apart from the parents, there is a grandfather, a maid/cook and 5 children. Lon, the son, soon disappears off to college in Princeton, and is heard of only when he spends his allowance or when he comes home for vacation. The eldest daughter, Rose, is boy-crazy in a way that becomes tiresome pretty early on. The second, Esther, isn't much better. Agnes and Tootie are 12 and 6, respectively, and are firmly considered "the children". It seems that this family spends most of its time playing tricks on each other, especially on young Tootie. So between Rose's preening whenever something wearing pants comes into sight, and the tormenting of Tootie, I didn't find the family particularly nice or attractive. The parts I liked best were the descriptions of the houses, clothes and habits of the St Louis bourgeoisie in the early 20th century. But as for actual story.... perhaps I should watch the movie.

[Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was thrilled to find this because I have been an avid fan of the movie ever since I can remember.

Usually it stands that the original source is better than the movie but oddly that is not the case here.

While I can definitely see how the book informed the screenplay (actually I could see word-for-word dialog pulled from it!), It simply did not have the charm and heart that the movie brings to the story.

The characters were not given the depth and warmth that I expected they would. Certain parts of the book were cut out for the movie which is to be expected or most movies would be 5 hours long! But the ones that were cut Didn't seem to add much to the story anyway.

I was very glad to be able to finally read this after all these years and am glad that it was recently reprinted, although I must say I was a little disappointed in it. A quick read nonetheless.

[Heather M L · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is very different from the movie, yet there remains a lot of the same scenes including the cake walk scene where Tootie sings "I was hmm last night dear mother." This is my favorite movie of all time so it was great to see these characters expanded and a few additional stories. The movie is actually better than the book, which is rare but the movie is so epically good and I mean..... What beats Judy Garland and Tom Drake? I pictured Margret O'Brien speaking the dialogue of Tootie all the way through. It was a good quick read.

[Hannah Alane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is so good!!! I was surprised how well the movie portrayed the book. Any changes were minor. There were only a few parts in the book that didn’t make the movie, and the Christmas/dance scene was changed in the movie to be more romantic. But that was it!

Oh, and Tootie is just as unhinged in the book….if not more so. 😂😂😂

[Lizzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this book, which is nothing like the movie. Reading it again for the nth time and still charmed by it. Amusing family stories but occasionally there's something that gives it a little more edge - I know when I first read it in junior high, I didn't notice the paragraph where the grandfather remembers his time in Andersonville prison. Which makes you see him as more than the quirky grandpa who enjoys teasing his granddaughters.

[Heatherterrybell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a sweet and cute book! Loved the old fashioned ways. Loved the relationships and characters. It felt like I was reading a movie and now I get to watch the movie!

[Stasia · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a lovely vignette!! How have I never read this before?!

I got serious 'Little Women' vibes from the family dynamics as well.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a sweet book! The movie is one of my all-time favorites, and I was surprised to learn it was based on a book. There are lines from the movie that are taken directly from the book, so that was nice to see. I haven’t decided which I like better, the book or the movie.

[Heidi-Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't believe I never knew this was a book first! Written in 1941, it's older than my mother and has that wonderful old book look, feel, and smell. And what an...interesting book. (I tend to use that word a lot, don't I?) Many of the events of the movie are in the book (Halloween, Tootie's trolley incident, the move, and many of the tiny things). Plenty of conversations and phrases from the movie came right out of the book. But there was a lot of switching around of lines and experiences between characters.

For instance, Agnes is the one who took on the hard house at Halloween, and is the one who says the very last line. It does not take Mr. Smith 3 months to decide to not move. It takes him one evening. And it's not at Christmas. The fair isn't even mentioned until halfway through the book. There are no real love interests for the older siblings until the last chapter. No Warren, although the long distance phone call takes place. No John Truett, though Esther does beat up the neighbor boy (but does not kiss him later). In the movie, I tended to like Esther and Rose overall. In the book? They're the turn of the 20th-century versions of Kitty and Lydia.

But even with those differences, I was still impressed by feeling as much "at home" in with the Smiths in the book as I did with the movie. Each chapter was a month, and followed an event or two in the space of a day or less. It felt like getting a chance to sit in on the family and watch the fun of a "large" family (there are only 5 kids). Teasing and practical jokes abound. But so does the love for each other. There is no real point from beginning to end except that the family is happy with what they have and who they are, and that they love each other. Something each one of us would do well to remember.

I couldn't help but wonder, though, if people in 1903-4 were really that sarcastic, flippant, disrespectful, and uncouth at times.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

It seems as though, looking at other reviews, because I have never seen the movie I have an advantage when it comes to how much I enjoyed Meet Me in St. Louis. It's a sharp and funny book with just a touch of sentimentality, mostly geared at how much the Smiths like their home city. Just like Junior Miss, Meet Me in St. Luis depicts vignettes from what can be deduced to be an upper middle class family in the city. The city is different and the family larger but it retains a lot that made Junior Miss shine in my eyes. Most of the stories feature the four girls as the main characters and Benson doesn't try and pretend that girls are any less energetic or scheming than boys. Feminity and adventurousness exist simultaneously (illustrated at third child Esther's disappointment at not having seen a rat in the sewer pipes) which brings a level of realism many modern books fail to depict accurately. The kids get away with jnearly everything just short of murder and It goes to show that being a pretty, smart and street-wise kid from a well-to-do family can get you out of just about anything. I'm not quite sure where the word "charming", seen in a lot of the other reviews, fits into this book, but it definitely is a fun and entertaining collection of stories.

[Maryse · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the most battered-dog-eared volumes in my library because I read it so often. I loved the movie and that compelled me to buy the book. Naturally, the book differs from the movie in some areas. For instance, the younger children (Tootie, especially) are a lot meaner in the book than on film and Rose and Esther are more giddy and boy-crazy than their sweet, sensible Judy Garland incarnate. Still, I loved the book. Reading it feels nostalgic. Like the movie, it exudes a sense of freshness and optimism of a world standing at the threshold of change. This is very much a turn-of-the-century story, starting with the old ways and ending with the St. Louis World Fair and what to them was the height of modernity. The world seemed so warm and innocent then.

[Pam · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a reprint - originally written in 1941 about the 1904 World's Fair held in St. Louis. It is loosely based on the author's own family and since I live it St. Louis and have seen the movie many times and so have my grandchildren, I thought I would read the book and give it to them. It is written somewhat amateurishly and doesn't explain very well what is going on. It is mostly dialogue and it always seems as if the reader is coming in on a conversation that has already started. The movie was great and having seen it before reading the book, it helped to understand what the book was about because the movie gave the background information that the book didn't supply.

[Jeff Mayo · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is one of the rare times that the book is not as good as the movie based on it. And I am only lukewarm to the film. This starts in June of 1903, and each chapter is one month leading up to the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis. It follows one family. They aren't particularly charming or funny and at times are downright nasty. The film gave the story more heart and made a better story arc than just looking in one month at a time.

[Shelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Series of vignettes about the Smith family, one per month in the year leading up to the opening of the 1904 St. Louis World Fair. Charming, funny, sweet; I love how teenage girls are just always teenage girls, whenever they lived. I never knew the movie was based on a book before this week, and I'm glad I read it, but really - movie is better.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a darling book and just as cute as the movie or vice versa. I "borrowed" this off my Grandpa's shelf when I was there this summer and was delighted to find my Grandma Dorothy Louise's name hand written inside. She has been gone for 20 years this year and my baby girl Polly Lou shares a middle nickname with her.

[Shelby · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an easy breezy enjoyable read! I have always loved older movies, they are pretty much all I watch. Having not been able to see this movie the book has given me enough satisfaction until I can find the film.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's by no means my first time reading Meet Me in St. Louis, but having dealt with the 1904 World's Fair in many permutations in my work at the History Museum, I come to it now with a greater appreciation of Benson's skill at evoking a time and a place.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very fun book, reads fast,and gives a clear picture of family life in the early 1900's. Funny.too.

[Bethany · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charming Americana. . .

[Siobhan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovely and funny.

[Erin]

Always watch the movie at Christmas time... thought I'd read the book this time.