Overview
Although she is one of the lesser-known figures in American literature, Constance Fenimore Woolson (1840-1894) authored some of the most carefully crafted and realistic short stories of the post-Civil War era. Constance Fenimore Woolson's Nineteenth Century: Essays is a collection of critical essays from different theoretical perspectives that offer new insights into Woolson and reintegrate her into nineteenth-century scholarship.Scholars including Nina Baym, Cheryl Torsney, and Kathleen Diffley have contributed more than a dozen essays that investigate Woolson's precursors and contemporaries, her regionalism, and her relationship to Henry James and Edith Wharton. They discuss topics ranging from the magazine illustrations accompanying Woolson's stories to the lesbian overtones of her most famous short story, "'Miss Grief.'" Many of the essays address Woolson within the wider contexts of her writing by looking at the work of other nineteenth-century women writers, such as Sarah Orne Jewett, and by considering Woolson's relationship to the guiding ideologies of the time. Others consider aspects of Woolson's regionalism as seen in her travel writing and ties to the Great Lakes. An introduction by Victoria Brehm provides an incisive overview of Woolson's life and oeuvre, and a chronology of her life concludes the book.
These essays explore topics crucial to understanding the period's literature and suggest new directions for scholarship. Together they constitute a groundbreaking collection that expands the available body of criticism about Woolson and her contemporaries. This book is indispensable reading for anyone interested in nineteenth-century women's fiction and travel writing.