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Collected Stories
When Constance Fenimore Woolson died in Venice in 1894 at the age of fifty-three, having jumped or fallen out of a third-story window, she was memorialized in all the major American papers, compared with George Eliot, Jane Austen, and the Brontës as one of the greatest women writers in English. In her lifetime, her novels and story collections enjoyed not only critical esteem but also commercial success of a kind her male rivals (and friends) Henry James and William Dean Howells seldom attained. For all that, Woolson was largely forgotten in the twentieth century, noted if at all because of her connection to James. Now, thanks to the recovery work of scholars and biographers in recent decades, we are regaining a proper sense of Woolson’s place in American literature, and of the brilliance and originality of her work.
With this volume Library of America presents the biggest and best edition of Woolson’s short fiction ever published. Here are twenty-one stories chosen from her four collections—Castle Nowhere: Lake-Country Sketches (1875), Rodman the Keeper: Southern Sketches (1880), The Front Yard and Other Italian Stories (1895), and Dorothy and Other Italian Stories (1896)—as well as two uncollected stories. Together they reveal Woolson as an innovator of American literary realism, a writer of deep feeling, complexity, and extraordinary descriptive powers.
Her arresting early work, set in the Great Lakes region, transformed the local color story from sentimental armchair travel into sophisticated, tough-minded fiction, as in the hauntingly vivid “St. Clair Flats” and “Solomon,” about women living with mad or visionary husbands in extremely isolated places. Other stories set in the Reconstruction South, written while the nation was still grieving the effects of the Civil War, explore poisonous racial and sectional tensions. In “Rodman the Keeper,” one of her finest Southern stories, a keeper of the dead in a nameless Union cemetery reluctantly becomes a caregiver to the living—a wounded Confederate veteran. In the final phase of her career, after she left the United States, Woolson turned her attention to international themes and the plight of women writers. Few have written as incisively about the way in which women were treated by their male contemporaries as Woolson does in “The Street of the Hyacinth” and “‘Miss Grief.’”
With this volume Library of America presents the biggest and best edition of Woolson’s short fiction ever published. Here are twenty-one stories chosen from her four collections—Castle Nowhere: Lake-Country Sketches (1875), Rodman the Keeper: Southern Sketches (1880), The Front Yard and Other Italian Stories (1895), and Dorothy and Other Italian Stories (1896)—as well as two uncollected stories. Together they reveal Woolson as an innovator of American literary realism, a writer of deep feeling, complexity, and extraordinary descriptive powers.
Her arresting early work, set in the Great Lakes region, transformed the local color story from sentimental armchair travel into sophisticated, tough-minded fiction, as in the hauntingly vivid “St. Clair Flats” and “Solomon,” about women living with mad or visionary husbands in extremely isolated places. Other stories set in the Reconstruction South, written while the nation was still grieving the effects of the Civil War, explore poisonous racial and sectional tensions. In “Rodman the Keeper,” one of her finest Southern stories, a keeper of the dead in a nameless Union cemetery reluctantly becomes a caregiver to the living—a wounded Confederate veteran. In the final phase of her career, after she left the United States, Woolson turned her attention to international themes and the plight of women writers. Few have written as incisively about the way in which women were treated by their male contemporaries as Woolson does in “The Street of the Hyacinth” and “‘Miss Grief.’”
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Published February 4, 2020
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About the author
Constance Fenimore Woolson
197 books37 followersConstance 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)
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)
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 7, 2020
Though I haven’t technically read this whole volume, I’m marking it ‘read’ because I read the chronology and the notes, and because I’ve read every single short story Woolson wrote.
I’m rating the volume 5 stars because it includes my favorites and I know how good all of these stories are. Most of her stories were previously unpublished (I'd read them through Gutenberg), so I am excited this book exists.
I’m rating the volume 5 stars because it includes my favorites and I know how good all of these stories are. Most of her stories were previously unpublished (I'd read them through Gutenberg), so I am excited this book exists.
March 17, 2020
Exceptionally good. Woolson is a writer who has been left out of our canon for far too long, and I'm thrilled her work is getting new and long-overdue attention. But it's Anne Boyd Rioux's outstanding editorial additions to this volume that make it so valuable -- this is an instant classic edition and her insights and additions are absolutely brilliant. So highly recommended!!
December 29, 2025
Flannery O’Connor led me to Henry James who led me to Constance Fenimore Woolson, where I’d hoped to find ‘premonitions’ of FOC. There were in these stories some ‘echoes’ of Ms. O’Connor, but most often I found myself musing about how FOC might have handled a particular story differently. ‘Peter the Parson’ seemed to bear the closest resemblance to FOC’s writing, while the Lake Country Sketches and the Southern Sketches generally had great potential as FOC-style short stories. “Jeanette” may be the best character sketch I’ve ever read. In any case, those two earliest collections seem to me the best of CFW’s work. (That said, I haven’t read any of CFW’s novels yet, and I admit not being very fond of FOC’s two novels. I do note, however, that “Anne” (CFW’s first novel) seems to have had the greatest success, so perhaps my sense that her earliest work was her best has some value.)
While reading these stories, I simultaneously made my way through editor Anne Boyd Rioux’s biography of ‘Connie’, and, although reading the two books together provided some perspective, ABR’s insistence on seeing CFW’s life through a feminist lens detracted from rather than enhanced my appreciation of the woman and her work. The feminist biographical narrative was so often forced, contrived even, that I have no confidence that the biographer (not to mention the editor) can be considered objective, while it has likewise undermined my own ability to read some of these stories without seeing them through that inadequate lens. Some of that mentality even made it in to the editor’s Chronology, which one might reasonably expect to be exempt from feminist interpretations. Ideology is a mental illness.
In any case, by the time I got to the two Italian collections in this volume, it seemed that I was reading precisely the type of dopey sentimental love-interest stories that women are always scorned for reading and writing. “The Street of the Hyacinth” was maybe the worst, but “The Florentine Experiment” and “At the Château of Corinne” are comparably gag-worthy. I honestly can’t fathom anyone being the least bit interested in these people and the complicated dance that we’re called upon to admire.
Something tells me that when I get around to reading Henry James, I’m not going to think much of him either.
As for CFW’s legacy, I don’t know if it is for the best that she was ‘forgotten’ for so long. Maybe she was left out for good reasons which have themselves been forgotten. (Better forgotten than cancelled??) If it were up to me, I’d include some of her early short stories in the anthologies. I might even suggest that the O’Henry Prize be renamed the O’Henry-Woolson Prize.
I’m glad I read her, and I would encourage others to do so as well. But take off the feminist glasses and just enjoy her work. It stands on its own, mostly.
While reading these stories, I simultaneously made my way through editor Anne Boyd Rioux’s biography of ‘Connie’, and, although reading the two books together provided some perspective, ABR’s insistence on seeing CFW’s life through a feminist lens detracted from rather than enhanced my appreciation of the woman and her work. The feminist biographical narrative was so often forced, contrived even, that I have no confidence that the biographer (not to mention the editor) can be considered objective, while it has likewise undermined my own ability to read some of these stories without seeing them through that inadequate lens. Some of that mentality even made it in to the editor’s Chronology, which one might reasonably expect to be exempt from feminist interpretations. Ideology is a mental illness.
In any case, by the time I got to the two Italian collections in this volume, it seemed that I was reading precisely the type of dopey sentimental love-interest stories that women are always scorned for reading and writing. “The Street of the Hyacinth” was maybe the worst, but “The Florentine Experiment” and “At the Château of Corinne” are comparably gag-worthy. I honestly can’t fathom anyone being the least bit interested in these people and the complicated dance that we’re called upon to admire.
Something tells me that when I get around to reading Henry James, I’m not going to think much of him either.
As for CFW’s legacy, I don’t know if it is for the best that she was ‘forgotten’ for so long. Maybe she was left out for good reasons which have themselves been forgotten. (Better forgotten than cancelled??) If it were up to me, I’d include some of her early short stories in the anthologies. I might even suggest that the O’Henry Prize be renamed the O’Henry-Woolson Prize.
I’m glad I read her, and I would encourage others to do so as well. But take off the feminist glasses and just enjoy her work. It stands on its own, mostly.
August 21, 2023
Wilhelmina - Woolson writes again about the German Separatist community. Like in many of Woolson's narratives, her narrator is paternalistic (well, matronly, in this case), with strong opinions about the world and, in particular, the main character-to-be-investigated. Here, our case is Wilhelmina, a woman who might be of the same stock as the German's of the settlement, might not, but has an enormous difference from them in one way, viz., her capacity to have strong feelings find form and motion in her otherwise stagnant environment. Whether she marries the baker, who is a good man and needs a wife to work, or Gustav (who is a soldier desirous to leave the village) is the emblem of this problem.
The events of the narrative resolve themselves into tragedy. Wilhelmina, in love with Gustav, is left behind by him; he doesn't know of her true passions, has a girlfriend (despite his promises), and thinks of her as if she were just another Separatist. Hence, he leaves. Wilhelmina, in the throes of grief, marries the baker--lives for a while--and dies!
Much of what the narrative desires to represent is hidden in mist. Our narrator herself, by playing an enormous and paternalistic role in Wilhelmina's fate (she decides for the girl never to tell Gustav of her passionate love), inserts herself into the otherwise strongly dualistic story--bringing her interpretation up to the same questions as anything else. This, one thinks, is a good thing; we see from afar that Wilhelmina is a plaything of the world. That America is free means nothing to her, neither that the town is not, because her life is cut short by a lacklustre lover (who doesn't follow the rules, particularly of courtship, but does follow the new rules of American freedom and pity for the Zoar) and (potentially) the hands of another. Her choices are never her own; her weakness is all that we see, even when the passions of love and of grief color her very shadow.
Like pretty much every Woolson story, this has many moments of subtle beauty. For example, told by Gustav about his new lover, our narrator almost chastises men for liking women in fancy dress--but stops herself for the very reason that her husband, John, followed after our narrator's pretty clothes in youth, thus showing herself the barest of emperors in even thinking up the comment. It is these textures of the narrative which make it so good.
The events of the narrative resolve themselves into tragedy. Wilhelmina, in love with Gustav, is left behind by him; he doesn't know of her true passions, has a girlfriend (despite his promises), and thinks of her as if she were just another Separatist. Hence, he leaves. Wilhelmina, in the throes of grief, marries the baker--lives for a while--and dies!
Much of what the narrative desires to represent is hidden in mist. Our narrator herself, by playing an enormous and paternalistic role in Wilhelmina's fate (she decides for the girl never to tell Gustav of her passionate love), inserts herself into the otherwise strongly dualistic story--bringing her interpretation up to the same questions as anything else. This, one thinks, is a good thing; we see from afar that Wilhelmina is a plaything of the world. That America is free means nothing to her, neither that the town is not, because her life is cut short by a lacklustre lover (who doesn't follow the rules, particularly of courtship, but does follow the new rules of American freedom and pity for the Zoar) and (potentially) the hands of another. Her choices are never her own; her weakness is all that we see, even when the passions of love and of grief color her very shadow.
Like pretty much every Woolson story, this has many moments of subtle beauty. For example, told by Gustav about his new lover, our narrator almost chastises men for liking women in fancy dress--but stops herself for the very reason that her husband, John, followed after our narrator's pretty clothes in youth, thus showing herself the barest of emperors in even thinking up the comment. It is these textures of the narrative which make it so good.
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August 6, 2021Fiction W916c 2020
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews