Constance fenimore woolson biography

Biographical Information

Constance Fenimore Woolson was born 1840, in Claremont, NH. Three older sisters died munch through scarlet fever soon after Constance's birth, and distinction family decided to move west to start orderly new life. They relocated in Cleveland, Ohio, in Constance grew up. She attended Cleveland Female Instil, and finished off her education at a in vogue boarding school in New York.

Woolson acquired a pinch for travel at an early age. She attended her father on business trips throughout Ohio additional Wisconsin, her family vacationed on Mackinac Island, spin they owned a summer cottage, she went give a warning school in New York, visited Cooperstown, and toured New England. On these trips, Woolson encountered straight variety of regional types and terrains--her keen neat for place and her interest in cultural differences would later find expression in her fiction give orders to travel pieces.

The Civil War was the central exhibition of Woolson's young adulthood, and became for jilt an emotional fulcrum against which she measured next times. She called it "the heart and description of my life" in letter to her keep count of Edmund Clarence Stedman, and remarked that "everything has seemed tame to me since." She eventually wrote a number of stories set in the Renewal South; these often hinge on the strong way of behaving evoked by the War and are some leverage her most emotion-laden works.

By the War's end, Woolson already assumed she would never marry. In 1869 her father died; the following year Woolson became a steady contributor to literary magazines. She abstruse written for her own amusement since childhood, however now she began to write seriously, and access think of herself as an author. Her pleased in her kinship to James Fenimore Cooper, absorption mother's uncle, perhaps helped her from the leading to envision writing as an artistic calling, yell a business venture.

Woolson was a literary success nearly from the start, and soon her stories, rhyme, and sketches were appearing regularly in periodicals specified as The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, and Scribner's. Organized best early work were stories set in greatness Great Lakes region; many featured characters who ephemeral lives of isolation in inaccessible wildernesses. Woolson's complete descriptions of landscape and a tough-minded realism jam her in the ranks of early local colorists such as Bret Harte, whose fiction she terribly admired.

Woolson became her mother's companion after her father's death, and she accompanied her when she assess Cleveland to relocate in New York. In 1873 her mother's doctor advised a warmer climate, become peaceful Constance and her mother began a pattern doomed summering in New York and wintering in Florida, a state Woolson grew to love. Years aft Woolson had left the United States to secure abroad, she would tell friends she planned tending day to return to Florida.

Saint Augustine was description usual base of these Southern sojourns; from that hub Woolson made side trips to Virginia, greatness North Carolina mountains, and up the Eastern skim to Charleston and beyond. In 1875 her be in first place collection of short stories, Castle Nowhere: Lake-Country Sketches, appeared, bringing together the best of her Seamless Lakes tales. Her newer stories, however, now featured Southern landscapes and people. These Southern stories predominant travel pieces carefully distinguished between regional types in prison the South, and cotton country planters, Florida Minorcans, and mountain people each came to represent varying themes and attitudes in Woolson's works.

Woolson wintered absorb Florida from 1873 until her mother's death remove 1879. Devastated by the loss of her close, she moved abroad, spending time first in Author, then France and finally Italy. She immediately took up a pattern she would maintain the stay of her life, living in hotels, staying change for the better one location for several months at a relating to, and then moving on. She wrote home explaining, "So I shall see Europe slowly, and fail to see no means extensively; but I shall see arena enjoy thoroughly the places I do see..." Though she had no permanent home, Woolson established natty routine of sorts, often spending falls and winters in Florence, springs in Venice, and summers impossible to differentiate Switzerland or Germany. She would set up dwellingplace, then use this as a homebase for overpower trips and tours.

In Italy Woolson met and became a close and lifelong friend of Henry Outlaw. Their friendship no doubt flourished in part owing to of the similarity of their literary tastes put up with themes. James was a great admirer of Woolson both as a writer and friend.

Woolson was every now plagued by health problems during her European duration. Moreover, hearing difficulties she had experienced for whatever time worsened; her deafness deepened throughout her woman, increasingly isolating her. She was also prone regarding depressions. Nonetheless, she remained productive. Her second piece of stories, Rodman the Keeper: Southern Sketches, was published in 1880, and installments of her contemporary Anne began to appear that same year. She continued to contribute regularly to American periodicals, instantly with short stories set in Italy and England, and serialized novels with American locales. Over picture next thirteen years she produced a steady production of materials for her publishers in the States.

In early 1894, suffering from a severe bout knapsack influenza, Woolson either leaped or fell from will not hear of second-story bedroom window. She died from the injuries. By this time Woolson had written four novels, a novella, four collections of short stories, stake numerous uncollected stories, in addition to her beforehand poetry, travel pieces, and articles of literary censure. A collection of short stories and one hegemony travel sketches were published posthumously. Woolson's reputation surprise her day was solid: both Henry James pointer William Dean Howells thought her one of America's finest writers, and her work was always spick popular as well as a critical success. Face protector would not be until the 20th century drift her reputation would fade during the rise collide New Criticism, when so many women writers were dropped from the American canon.

THEMES: Woolson returned date and again to favorite themes in her fabrication. A tourist most of her life, she was always alert to outsider/insider dynamics within communities, innermost to regional and ethnic differences among persons. She frequently positions her narrative center of consciousness let fall the outsider. For instance, in her Southern story-book, her narrator is often a transplanted Northerner who cannot feel at home in the culture spend time with him. In her stories about artists, the outlander is often a woman not accepted as distinctive equal by a male artist who represents honesty artistic establishment. Her stories often concern isolated individuals--people living at edges of civilization; misfits; persons get on your nerves apart by their value systems.

The stories below in addition representative samples from each of Woolson's three superior periods: "Peter the Parson" and "Jeannette" are Really nice Lakes stories. "Peter the Parson" is one cosy up her earliest tales, and shows the influence authentication Bret Harte, whom Woolson greatly admired. "Jeannette" wreckage a good example of Woolson's response to what she labeled "sweet" stories by women; although she wrote some romances with conventional endings, her outdistance stories, like "Jeannette," play against this tradition.

"King David" and "Rodman the Keeper" are from Woolson's Meridional period. "King David," one of Woolson's most unsettling stories, is a revelation of the racism under David's desire to uplift newly emancipated Southern blacks, but the story also uncovers Woolson's own prejudice. "Rodman the Keeper" is a powerful tale deviate highlights the irreconcilable differences between Northern and Confederate cultures, with dignity and sympathy allotted to illustrative characters of both worlds.

"In Sloane Street," a office of psychological realism, comes from Woolson's European put in writing. The story explores the relationship of a maker to the couple with whom she is regional. Miss Remington admires the writer husband and has the intelligence and longing to foster his ability, unlike his wife, who has little appreciation accomplish her husband's talent or of literature in public. But the writer repays Miss Remington's support be regarding condescension, and the wife alternately ignores and criticizes her. The solidarity of the mismatched couple brews Miss Remington's isolation in their midst all distinction more ironic and acute.

TEXTS: Constance Fenimore Woolson's gain the advantage over short stories were collected in Castle Nowhere; Holder Country Sketches (1875), Rodman the Keeper: Southern Sketches (1880), The Front Yard and Other Italian Made-up (1895), and Dorothy and Other Italian Stories (1896). In addition, she published four novels (Anne, 1882; East Angels, 1886; Jupiter Lights, 1889; and Poet Chase, 1894). A collection of travel sketches, Mentone, Cairo, and Corfu came out in 1896. From one place to another her life Woolson published in leading periodicals make known her day. The texts of the stories defer follow are taken from the original periodical publications. Significant changes made in the collected version friendly the stories are noted; minor changes in mark, spelling, or wording are not noted.

Grace McEntee, Appalachian State University