WOOLSON, Constance Fenimore

Born 5 March 1840, Claremont, New Hampshire; died 24 January 1894, Venice, Italy

Wrote under: Anne March Daughter of Charles J. and Hannah Pomeroy Woolson

Constance Fenimore Woolson was the sixth of nine children and the grandniece of James Fenimore Cooper. After the death of three older sisters from scarlet fever, Woolson moved at a very early age with her family to Cleveland. She attended school there until enrolling in Madame Chegary's school in New York City, from which she graduated in 1858. Her childhood summers were spent at the family cottage at Mackinac Island, later to become the setting for a number of her short stories. After her father's death in 1869, she traveled extensively in the South with her mother. Upon her mother's death in 1879, Woolson and her sister, Clare Benedict, traveled in Europe, where Woolson spent the remainder of her life. She died in Venice after falling or leaping from her bedroom window. Whether her death was the result of delirium from influenza or of depression has never been determined. At the time of her death, she had achieved a moderate degree of recognition as a writer; today her works are virtually unknown.

Woolson's writings reflect her experiences in the northern lake country, the South, and Europe. Much of her fiction appeared initially in magazines and was later in books. She also published several novels, the quality of which is usually inferior to that of her stories. Woolson's first book, The Old Stone House, a book for children, was published in 1872 under the pseudonym of Anne March. Of more importance, however, is the collection Castle Nowhere: Lake-Country Sketches (1875), which contains nine stories fashioned from her observations of Mackinac Island. Castle Nowhere has been compared favorably with Sarah Orne Jewett's Deephaven (1877) and Mary Noailles Murfree's In the Tennessee Mountains (1884).

Of even better quality is her second volume of short stories, Rodman the Keeper: Southern Sketches (1880), which sympathetically treats the Reconstruction period. One of the most skillfully written pieces in this collection, "Old Gardiston," depicts the downfall of an ancient Southern family, and concludes with the burning of their mansion before it can be possessed by a Northern businessman and his wife.

Anne (1882) was published as a novel shortly after its serialization in Harper's. Set in various places, including Mackinac Island, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, the novel tells the story of Anne Douglas in a somewhat melodramatic plot including a love affair and a murder trial. In the 1880s, Anne was a popular novel; today it is a forgotten work deserving renewed attention.

For the Major (1883), set in Far Edgerly, a mountain village in western North Carolina, is a tale of Sara Carroll's return home from a long journey and her discovery her father, Major Carroll, has become senile and her stepmother is laboring to shield both the Major and the townspeople from this knowledge. Woolson's story provides an excellent blend of comic treatment of the inhabitants of Far Edgerly and a noble portrait of the declining Major and his compassionate wife. It is considered one of Woolson's finest works.

East Angels (1886), set in Florida, was also a popular work at the time of its publication. Woolson brings together a group of wealthy Northerners and impoverished Southern aristocrats in this postwar novel of reconciliation. In her novel Jupiter Lights (1889), Woolson incorporates Georgia, the Lake Country, and Italy as settings. Although the plot is contrived and the action melodramatic, the work has been noted for its advances in the psychological complexity of the characters, especially the heroine, Eve Bruce.

Woolson's final novel, Horace Chase (1894), set in Asheville, North Carolina, after the war, chronicles the marriage of Horace Chase, self-made millionaire, and Ruth Franklin, his headstrong young wife. Ruth becomes infatuated with a young man of her own age, but is forgiven by her husband, who says at the close of the novel, "I don't know that I have been so perfect myself, that I have any right to judge you." In a letter to Henry Mills Alden, Woolson notes that the essence of the novel lies in that last sentence and concludes, "Do you think it is impossible? I do not."

Two volumes of Italian stories, The Front Yard, and Other Italian Stories (1895) and Dorothy, and Other Italian Stories (1896), as well as a volume of travel sketches, Mentone, Cairo, and Corfu (1896), were published after Woolson's death. The Italian stories include some of her best work, such as "The Front Yard," the story of Prudence Wilkin, a New England woman who accompanies her wealthy cousin to Italy. Prudence marries an Italian waiter, who dies after their first year of marriage, leaving her a house inhabited by eight children and other assorted relatives whom Prudence supports until her death 16 years later.

A minor writer who produced a number of fine stories, Woolson is to be noted as a pioneer both in local color writing and in her depiction of a number of female characters—such as Ruth Franklin of Horace Chase or Margaret Harold of East Angels— which anticipates female characterization of 20th-century literature.

Other Works:

A significant number of Constance Fenimore Woolson's papers are housed at the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland, Ohio.

Bibliography:

Benedict, C., ed., Five Generations (1785-1923) (1929-30). James, H., Partial Portraits (1888). Kern, J. D., Constance Fenimore Woolson: Literary Pioneer (1934). Moore, R., Constance F. Woolson (1963). Tornsey, C. B., Constance Fenimore Woolson: The Grief and the Artistry (1989). Tornsey, C. B., ed., Critical Essays on Constance Fenimore Woolson (1992). Weimer, J. M., ed., Women Artists, Women Exiles: "Miss Grief" and Other Stories (1988).