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Constance Fenimore Woolson (1840–1894)

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34+ verk 329 medlemmar 13 recensioner

Om författaren

One of many popular local-color writers, Constance Fenimore Woolson, grand-niece of James Fenimore Cooper, is best remembered for her short stories, although her good friend Henry James regarded her as a novelist. She was born in Claremont, New Hampshire, but grew up in the expanding midwestern visa mer town of Cleveland. She enjoyed traveling both in the United States and Europe, and many of her stories are set in the places she visited. Summers spent at Mackinac Island in the Great Lakes region provided background for the stories in Castle Nowhere: Lake-Country Sketches (1875). Her first novel, Anne (1882), serialized in Harper's, is a melodramatic story of a love affair and a murder trial. After the Civil War, Woolson traveled throughout the South, writing Rodman the Keeper: Southern Sketches (1880), stories sympathetic to Southern families in the Reconstruction era; For the Major (1883), about a Civil War veteran; and East Angels (1886), showing a reconciliation between wealthy Northern industrialists and poor Southern aristocrats. In 1879 she moved to Europe, where she continued to write stories and travel sketches, many of which are about Americans abroad. Although her works have been neglected, she is well regarded, especially for her keen observation and her treatment of her female characters. (Bowker Author Biography) visa färre
Särskiljningsinformation:

(eng) Birth date note: Per the old book "A Woman of the Century", birth date is listed as 1848. Per the website "A Celebration of Women Writers", birth date is listed as 1840.

Foto taget av: Miss Constance Fenimore Woolson (1840-1894), Buffalo Electrotype and Engraving Co., Buffalo, N.Y.

Verk av Constance Fenimore Woolson

Collected Stories (2004) 74 exemplar
Miss Grief and Other Stories (2016) 66 exemplar
Anne (1882) 43 exemplar
Castle Nowhere (1875) 24 exemplar
East Angels (1886) 14 exemplar
Jupiter Lights: A Novel (1889) 12 exemplar
Horace Chase (1894) 7 exemplar
Mentone, Cairo and Corfu (1896) 7 exemplar
For the Major : a novelette (1883) 7 exemplar
The Old Stone House (1873) 6 exemplar

Associerade verk

Daughters of Decadence: Women Writers of the Fin-de-Siècle (1993) — Bidragsgivare — 184 exemplar
The Signet Classic Book of Southern Short Stories (1991) — Bidragsgivare — 121 exemplar
Two Friends and Other 19th-century American Lesbian Stories (1994) — Bidragsgivare — 98 exemplar
The Vintage Book of American Women Writers (2011) — Bidragsgivare — 56 exemplar
Scribbling Women: Short Stories by 19th-Century American Women (1997) — Bidragsgivare — 49 exemplar
Best Loved Short Stories of Nineteenth Century America (2003) — Bidragsgivare — 39 exemplar
Representative American Short Stories — Bidragsgivare — 5 exemplar
The Heart Of Childhood (1906) — Bidragsgivare — 3 exemplar

Taggad

Allmänna fakta

Andra namn
March, Anne
Födelsedag
1840-03-05
Avled
1894-01-24
Begravningsplats
The Protestant Cemetery, Rome, Italy
Kön
female
Nationalitet
USA
Födelseort
Claremont, New Hampshire, USA
Dödsort
Venice, Italy
Bostadsorter
Claremont, New Hampshire, USA
Cleveland, Ohio, USA
New York, New York, USA
St. Augustine, Florida, USA
Venice, Italy
Utbildning
Miss Hayden’s School
Cleveland Female Seminary
Yrken
travel writer
short story writer
novelist
Relationer
Cooper, James Fenimore (great-uncle)
James, Henry (friend)
Benedict, Clare (niece & biographer)
Kort biografi
Constance Fenimore Woolson was a bestselling author of her day. Her relationship with Henry James has been the subject of speculation for biographers and novelists. She was born in the village of Claremont, New Hampshire; her mother was a niece of James Fenimore Cooper. Within a month of her birth, three of her five elder sisters died of scarlet fever. The family was left with a brooding depressiveness that haunted them all their lives. They moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where Constance attended the Cleveland Female Seminary and then a boarding school in New York. She began writing as a child but did not begin publishing until age 30, when her stories, essays, and sketches met with immediate success in major magazines of the time, including Harper’s, Scribner’s, and The Atlantic Monthly. Her work was marked by the realism that took hold in American literature during the second half of the 19th century. Besides depression, she suffered from early-onset deafness that was interpreted by others as coldness and contributed to her insecurity and feelings of isolation. Her most famous short story, "Miss Grief," published in Lippincott’s Magazine in May 1880, demonstrated the complexities of the life of a woman writer of her time. Her first full-length story was The Old Stone House, a children's book that appeared in 1873 under the pseudonym Anne March. She published the first of several novels, Anne, in 1880. Following the death of her parents, she became financially independent and felt able to travel. In Florence, she met Henry James and they began a friendship that lasted for the next 14 years as they wandered around Europe together and separately. In 1894, at age 53, she either jumped or fell to her death from the window of an apartment overlooking the Grand Canal in Venice.
Särskiljningsnotis
Birth date note: Per the old book "A Woman of the Century", birth date is listed as 1848. Per the website "A Celebration of Women Writers", birth date is listed as 1840.

Medlemmar

Recensioner

Last year I read Anne by [[Constance Fenimore Woolson]] after learning about the author on a vacation to Mackinaw Island in Michigan. I loved that book - 5 star read with great characters a fun plot and great descriptive writing. I've been looking forward to reading more of Woolson's work and picked up [East Angels] next. Unfortunately, I didn't find it as well done as Anne.

East Angels is about love and secrets and bad choices. There is a young girl, Garda, who is the focus of the first half of the book. As she grows up, her love interests are the focus of the book. In the second half, the interest sort of shifts to a slightly older woman who is Garda's guardian and we get to hear her back story and follow whether she'll end up happy or remain in her frustrating marriage.

The plot is pretty weak. And the characters, especially the secondary characters, are stereotypical and not particularly developed. The one thing that I still enjoyed in this book is the setting and nature writing. This takes place in Florida, I think in the St. Augustine area, and Woolson really evokes the setting well and incorporates the setting into the plot. This saved the book for me.

I hate writing a negative review about a lesser-known woman author, especially when I loved the first book I read by her, but I wouldn't really recommend reading this as an example of Woolson's work. I will give her another try since I've been split on the two novels that I've read by her.
… (mer)
½
 
Flaggad
japaul22 | Jan 27, 2024 |
Ms Constance Fenimore Woolson’s collected stories are contained here in this LOA volume. She has long been forgotten yet her intense characters made a great impression on her readers. Yet like Henry James, she could not expand beyond the limits of her own writings which could explain why her work was forgotten so quickly.
 
Flaggad
walterhistory | Jun 17, 2023 |
Estamos a finales del siglo XIX. Prudence, la viajera norteamericana que protagoniza esta historia, no ha hecho caso a su nombre por una vez en la vida y ha sido «imprudente»: se ha dejado llevar por el amor. Aunque no le gusta especialmente Italia, se ha instalado allí tras casarse con un viudo que también es padre de varios hijos. Y que, además, muere al poco tiempo de la boda. ¿Qué hacer ahora? ¿Abandonar a su nueva familia, donde convive el poco encanto con el mucho egoísmo, y regresar a Estados Unidos, o quedarse y tratar de consolarse con, al menos, algo sólo suyo, algo que le recuerde a su antiguo hogar, un jardín, por ejemplo? El tiempo pasa y las ilusiones merman. Pero Prudence sigue creyendo en ese jardín. ¿Lo conseguirá finalmente o se lo impedirán el destino y sus heredados familiares, terribles en ocasiones, pero esenciales en esta excelente narración llena de sentimientos contradictorios?… (mer)
 
Flaggad
Natt90 | Mar 8, 2023 |
Anne is a novel by American author Constance Fenimore Woolson published in 1881. Woolson's works have fallen into obscurity, but I learned about her on a summer vacation to Mackinac Island in northern Michigan. She spent a lot of time on the island, included it in her writings, and has a memorial there. Now she is best known as the niece of [[James Fenimore Cooper]] and the good friend of [[Henry James]]. I read an excellent biography of Woolson last year, [Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist] by [[Anne Boyd Rioux]], and wanted to read some of Woolson's novels.

I started with Anne because it was Woolson's first novel and supposed to be her most popular and accessible. I went into it honestly thinking it might be sort of a slog, but I ended up absolutely loving it! When we meet Anne, she is a teenager living on Mackinac Island with a blended family and in near poverty. But she is happy - she loves the island and there is some really excellent nature writing here by Woolson. When Anne's father dies, she becomes engaged to her childhood sweetheart and they both go off into the world to try to make some money. Anne is sponsored by her wealthy and hard-hearted Aunt to attend a finishing school in New York with the idea that this will set her up to teach and that will be the end of her relationship with her aunt. But Anne is a lovely person, and she meets friends in high places and begins developing complicated relationships in this higher society circle.

I was really sad when Anne left the island and worried that losing that setting would make the rest of the book uninteresting, but Woolson sets up a beautiful romance in the middle of the book that includes all the typical drama of the era. There are misunderstandings, hidden feelings, and missed chances between several potential couples. And I was totally enamored. And then the Civil War happens, providing another great background/setting for the action.

I will admit that the last fifth of the book takes a plot turn that is a bit far-fetched, but it is not out of line with many novels of the era.

I'm sad that this book is not in print and isn't more widely read. If I had to compare her writing with someone, I'd say she has the technique and drama of a [[Charlotte Brontë]] and the keen observation of [[Anthony Trollope]]. I would really like to read more of her books and hope I can find them! Please give her a try if you are a fan of this era of writing!
… (mer)
 
Flaggad
japaul22 | 1 annan recension | Jan 14, 2023 |

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Statistik

Verk
34
Även av
10
Medlemmar
329
Popularitet
#72,116
Betyg
3.8
Recensioner
13
ISBN
168
Språk
3

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