Castle Nowhere: Lake-Country Sketches

by Constance Fenimore Woolson, Margot Livesey (Introduction)

Castle Nowhere is Constance Woolson's collection of stories set for the most part in the Great Lakes, in particular northern Lake Michigan and Lake Huron near Detroit. Several themes inhabit Woolson's an environmental consciousness and concern with landscapes; an awareness of the complexities of race; and an abidingly careful eye for the shallowness that sometimes accompanies wealth or social pretensions. She also had a unique perspective as a woman who pioneered the use of controversial subjects---such as unrequited or misplaced passion---and methods in fiction during a time that valorized domesticity. As Margot Livesey notes in her introduction, reading about thwarted love is only one of the pleasures to be found in Castle Nowhere . "The majority of these stories are set in remote areas on the shores of Lake Michigan, which Woolson evokes with great vividness and beauty while always remaining keenly aware that beauty in no way mitigates hardship. As a writer, she was nearly always looking over her shoulder, and many, if not all, of these stories were written at a time when she no longer visited the Lake and her beloved Mackinac Island." Contemporary readers will find a curiously modern atmosphere in Woolson's stories, as well as a distinct regional flavor in her careful renderings of the Great Lakes landscape. As such, Castle Nowhere represents a rare woman's voice in literature of its period and setting. Constance Fenimore Woolson (1840-1894) was born in New Hampshire and moved to Cleveland shortly thereafter. She spent time on Mackinac Island, Michigan, then traveled to Florida before moving to Europe. Much of her time there was spent in Italy. She died in Venice in 1894. Novelist Margot Livesey is the author of Eva Moves the Furniture and Homework.

Genres: Fiction

278 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1875

About the author

Constance Fenimore Woolson (March 5, 1840 – January 24, 1894) was an American novelist, poet, and short story writer. She was a grandniece of James Fenimore Cooper, and is best known for fictions about the Great Lakes region, the American South, and American expatriates in Europe.

Woolson was born in Claremont, New Hampshire, but her family soon moved to Cleveland, Ohio, after the deaths of three of her sisters from scarlet fever. Woolson was educated at the Cleveland Female Seminary and a boarding school in New York. She traveled extensively through the midwest and northeastern regions of the U.S. during her childhood and young adulthood.

Woolson’s father died in 1869. The following year she began to publish fiction and essays in magazines such as The Atlantic Monthly and Harper's Magazine. Her first full-length publication was a children’s book, The Old Stone House (1873). In 1875 she published her first volume of short stories, Castle Nowhere: Lake-Country Sketches, based on her experiences in the Great Lakes region, especially Mackinac Island.

From 1873 to 1879 Woolson spent winters with her mother in St. Augustine, Florida. During these visits she traveled widely in the South which gave her material for her next collection of short stories, Rodman the Keeper: Southern Sketches (1880). After her mother’s death in 1879, Woolson went to Europe, staying at a succession of hotels in England, France, Italy, Switzerland and Germany.

Woolson published her first novel Anne in 1880, followed by three others: East Angels (1886), Jupiter Lights (1889) and Horace Chase (1894). In 1883 she published the novella For the Major, a story of the postwar South that has become one of her most respected fictions. In the winter of 1889–1890 she traveled to Egypt and Greece, which resulted in a collection of travel sketches, Mentone, Cairo and Corfu (published posthumously in 1896).

In 1893 Woolson rented an elegant apartment on the Grand Canal of Venice. Suffering from influenza and depression, she either jumped or fell to her death from a window in the apartment in January 1894. Two volumes of her short stories appeared after her death: The Front Yard and Other Italian Stories (1895) and Dorothy and Other Italian Stories (1896). She is buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome, and is memorialized by Anne's Tablet on Mackinac Island, Michigan.

Woolson’s short stories have long been regarded as pioneering examples of local color or regionalism. Today, Woolson's novels, short stories, poetry, and travelogues are studied and taught from a range of scholarly and critical perspectives, including feminist, psychoanalytic, gender studies, postcolonial, and new historicism.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading two of these stories in Miss Grief and Other Stories ("St. Clair Flats" and "Solomon"), then three more in the incomplete Castle Nowhere, I scoured the internet for the remaining four of this collection. (My reviews of the former volumes can be found here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... and https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .) Each story is set in the Great Lakes region, in rough settlements, for the most part, with setting determining plot.

“Peter the Parson” is realistic and unsentimental, especially in its ending. “Misery Island” is significant for gender reversal, with a boy racked with fever due to unrequited love.

“Wilhelmina” is set within a community of Zoarites, German Separatists living in a valley of Ohio. At one point I wondered if the story might be a precursor of sorts to A Study in Scarlet (part of which describes an early Mormon settlement). There is no mystery, murder or violence; yet menace is implied during the covert whisperings of the leaders over those who want to leave.

“Lady of Little Fishing” turns out to be an O. Henry-type tale (another author Woolson came before). Interestingly, the phrase he was like a third horse is used in this story to mean, as far as I could tell, the same thing as our time’s 'fifth wheel.'

[Colin]

"Castle Nowhere: Lake-Country Sketches," is a book written by Constance Fenimore Cooper towards the end of the 19th century. The story, which is in fact more of a novella, centers around a man named Jarvis Waring who seeks refuge from the crime and poverty ridden New York City of the late 1800s in Michigan's sparsely populated Upper Peninsula. He sets out on Lake Michigan in a canoe with no destination in mind. He knows only that he wants to get as far away from human civilization as possible and lead an authentic existence in harmony with nature. Shortly after the beginning of his journey he is robbed by a man called Amos Fog, and he follows Fog to his hideout, which is called Castle Nowhere, to seek his revenge. Upon arriving at the wooden fortress, Waring discovers that Fog lives with a housekeeper and a beautiful daughter who knows nothing of death, love, or the outside world. Her passions are growing things and keeping seagulls. Jarvis Waring ends up getting snowed in for the winter and stays with the family, falling in love with the girl, and she with him, though she does not know what the feelings she has for Waring mean. This is a story I would teach to 11th and 12th grade students, primarily because of the difficult 19th century lexicon employed by Woolsen throughout. However, this story is captivating and particularly relevant to Michigan students who don't often see their state, especially the remote northern regions, represented in literature. This is a story of innocence, ignorance, ethics, love, compassion, and survival, and there is ample room for discussion of all of the above after reading this story. This story is also a great example of Realism (though there are surrealistic and almost dreamlike sections) and Regionalism, and would serve as a great introduction to the various artistic and philosophical movements of history.

[Humphrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title story is the best here; it and "Waiting Samuel" follow Harriet Prescott Spofford in their ethereal blend of the psychological and the fantastic. Others are effective local color stories that explore the insider/outsider dichotomy, puncture the fantasy of naturalness/simplicity, and highlight the small intimacies and sadnesses of local life. As with so much of Woolson's career, one feels that she has already (mastered and) written meta-fictions about the forms before she even wrote in them.

[Etta Madden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Woolson has been among my favorite 19th c. authors since 2010, when a colleague introduced me to her works. This collection only increases my fascination with her insight, imagination, and aesthetic talent. Hope to use this collection in a course next spring!