1883
Returns to Florence and stays again at the Casa Molini. Becomes part of a social scene that includes Howells and his family, the Hays, old friends from Rome, and a host of British and American writers. Enjoys the respect she receives as a writer in society but laments the time it takes away from her writing. Flees to Venice in April, as do the Howellses, and finds the smaller society there more manageable. Stays at the Palazzo Gritti-Swift; writes in the mornings and spends afternoons in a gondola. For the Major continues serialization in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine through April, followed by the book version in July. Disappointingly, For the Major sells only about 5,000 copies. Sampson Low & Company publishes Anne and For the Major in England. Leaves Venice on July 7 for Engelberg, then travels to Baden-Baden. While in Baden-Baden receives news of her brother, Charlie’s, suicide on August 20, plunging her into a deep depression. Arrives in London in October; takes an apartment in Sloane Street and stays for eight months, seeing James often.
1884
In January is feeling more optimistic and starts writing again. By May is working on a new novel, East Angels. Moves to Hampstead Heath for the summer; goes to Dover in September, where she meets James; moves to Salisbury at end of September and spends two blissful months living within the close of the cathedral. James visits September 29 and they go to Stonehenge. Spends winter in Vienna with Clara and Clare.
1885
Stays in Vienna until April. Moves to the Isle of Wight where she falls ill; is unable to write. Retreats to the baths of Leamington with Clara and Clare, who sail home in September. Gradually regains strength and ability to write. Moves back to London for the winter. James introduces her to his sister, Alice James, and her companion, Katharine Loring, and the three become close friends. East Angels begins serialization in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine in January. Asks the Harpers for a larger advance and receives it: $3,500.
1886
Stays in London until spring, finishing book revisions of East Angels. Returns to Florence in early April. Learns that manuscript was feared lost on Atlantic voyage and rewrites East Angels in fourteen-hour days for two weeks; then learns the manuscript arrived safely after all. Dr. William Wilberforce Baldwin helps soothe the writer’s cramp in her arm and back and becomes a close friend. East Angels ends serialization in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine in May, and the book version is released in the U.S. by Harper & Brothers in June, selling about 10,500 copies, and in England by Sampson Low & Company. Critics, including her old friend (and new enemy) Howells, attack the portrayal of the heroine as unrealistic; Woolson defends her portrait in private letters. James facilitates her introduction to his friends the composer Francis Boott, his artist daughter, Lizzie, and her new husband, the artist Frank Duveneck. After summer in Geneva, subleases an apartment in the Bootts’ home, the Villa Castellani, on Bellosguardo, a hill overlooking Florence, from September through the end of the year. James comes for a visit December 8, staying for three weeks in the Villa Brichieri, just up the road. Becomes godmother to Lizzie and Frank’s baby, named Frank, born December 18.
1887
Moves into the Villa Brichieri after James leaves. Leases it for a year and sets up housekeeping, experiencing settled happiness for the first time since her father died. James’s appreciative (although paternalistic) essay “Miss Woolson” appears in Harper’s Weekly February 12. James falls ill in Venice and Woolson invites him to convalesce in the apartment below hers, with a separate entrance. He stays for six weeks, beginning in April, making daily visits to her upstairs apartment. Woolson falls ill and James helps to care for her. Around this time, they agree to destroy their letters to each other. Only four of hers to him will survive. Poor health prevents her from writing much. Spends the summer in Geneva. Only publication this year is “At the Château of Corrine,” in October (Harper’s New Monthly Magazine).
1888
Renews lease on Villa Brichieri for another year. Begins writing new novel, Jupiter Lights, in January. On March 22 Lizzie Duveneck dies of pneumonia in Paris. Helps the grief-stricken father, husband, and son through the summer; they move back to the U.S. in August, leaving Woolson alone and bereft on Bellosguardo. After completing the serial version of her novel, returns to Geneva in October; James stays across the lake and they visit regularly. Publishes “A Pink Villa” in November and “The Front Yard” in December in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine.
1889
Renews lease on Villa Brichieri for another year. Jupiter Lights begins serialization in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine in January and runs through September. Clara and Clare come and live in the downstairs apartment. The social life they bring with them forces her to stay up at night, writing until dawn, to finish revisions to the book version of Jupiter Lights. Starts worrying about money, ability to keep villa; falls into a deep depression; often talks to the departed Lizzie and plays Francis Boott’s compositions on the piano, including “Through the Long Days.” Visits Venice in June and July. In July, nephew Sam Mather sends her a gift of $15,000, restoring her hope for the future. Visits Richmond, England, in the fall; walks eight miles a day and visits James in London occasionally. Book version of Jupiter published in December by Harper & Brothers in U.S. and by Sampson Low & Company in England. Book alternately praised for its power and criticized for its portrayal of domestic violence against women. Sales are modest: 6,000 copies. In December, Woolson breaks up her Villa Brichieri home.
1890
Undertakes journey (begun at end of December 1889) with Clara and Clare to Corfu, Cairo, and Jerusalem. Returns to Cairo alone, where she enjoys expatriate society and explores Egyptian culture, reporting, “I feel like another person—so broadened in mind by an actual look into the strange life of the East.” Sails to England in April and settles in Cheltenham, where she will have few distractions and can write. Receives visits from James, Dr. Baldwin, and Katharine Loring. Grows depressed in the winter. Writes “Dorothy,” based on her memories of Bellosguardo (published in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, March 1892).
1891
Stays on in Cheltenham. Receives offers from syndicates to write for them and earn more money; she declines and remains loyal to the Harpers. Continues to worry about money as she foresees a time when she will no longer be able to write. In May, Clara and Clare return to Europe and take her on excursions. Moves to Oxford in July, living near Oriel College and then at 15 Beaumont Street. Attends premiere of James’s play The American on September 26 and meets William James. Tries artificial eardrums to improve her hearing. Two-part essay “Cairo 1890” appears in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine (October–November).
1892
Falls ill in January, in midst of flu epidemic that closes Oxford University for first time in living memory. Develops splitting headaches, then painful earaches, which she blames on the artificial eardrums, lasting six agonizing weeks. Alice James, on her deathbed in London, sends messages to her, including a final mysterious message probably consigning her brother to her care. The final story Katharine Loring reads to Alice is Woolson’s “Dorothy.” Alice dies March 6. Henry comes a week later to Oxford and his visits increase through the rest of the year. Publishes “In Sloane Street” in Harper’s Bazar in June. Earnings dwindle, and Woolson has to draw on her capital, no longer able to live off the small interest her investments earn. Is still unable to start saving for retirement and is already a year late turning in her new novel, Horace Chase.
1893
Horace Chase begins its serial run in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine in January. Falls ill again with a bad cold. The labor of writing has left her feeling that the whole right side of her body is “deformed.” By March, with two parts of the novel yet to complete, her doctor restricts her activities to writing, eating, and sleeping. Makes plans to leave England’s cold winters for Venice. By May, has finally completed Horace Chase, which concludes its serial run in August. Visits dentist in
London and falls ill with influenza. Severely weakened, leaves for Venice, meeting James in Paris on the way. James plans to visit her in Venice. Lives in Casa Biondetti, writing in the morning and floating out to the lagoons in the afternoons. Socializes with close friends Ariana and Daniel Curtis, Katherine de Kay Bronson, and Lady Layard. Hides her growing depression from them. Works nearly eleven hours a day on book proofs of Horace Chase. Friends notice her deteriorating health, and she feels she will not live into old age. Moves into new apartment at Casa Semitecolo on the Grand Canal in September, getting her belongings from Bellosguardo and setting up housekeeping again. James delays his expected visit. The Panic of 1893 spreads across U.S. and Europe, closing banks around Italy. She is terrified of losing her dwindling funds and again draws on her capital, forestalling indefinitely her dream of retiring to Florida. Friends leave Venice for the winter, but she stays, planning to start writing a new novel on January 1.
1894
On New Year’s Day, walks through Venice after a snowstorm and writes to her editor, Henry Mills Alden, that she cannot write another novel: “I have given up my broken sword to Fate, the Conqueror.” First two weeks of January unusually cold. On the thirteenth, goes for a walk and falls ill. Plans to write her will (which she never does) and requests that her body be brought to the Protestant Cemetery in Rome for burial. After a period of painful vomiting and fever, believed to be influenza but possibly something more serious, seems to be getting better but grows increasingly irritable and dependent on laudanum and morphine. On the night of January 23, doctor refuses to give her a stronger dose. When she wakes up at midnight, either falls or jumps out of third-story window of the Casa Semitecolo, landing on the pavement below. Dies one hour later, in the early morning of January 24. Venetian papers report her death as a suicide and English and American papers pick up the story, pronouncing her eccentric and insane. James plans to come to her funeral from London but is prostrated by grief when he learns her death is considered a suicide. She is taken for burial to the Protestant Cemetery in Rome, where she is laid to rest near the grave of Percy Bysshe Shelley. John and Clara Hay and other friends in Italy attend the funeral on January 31. “A Transplanted Boy” appears in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine in February. Horace Chase is published in February by Harper & Brothers in the U.S. and by Osgood, McIlvaine & Company in England.
1895–96
Harper & Brothers posthumously publishes the story collections The Front Yard and Other Italian Stories (September 1895) and Dorothy and Other Italian Stories (January 1896), and a volume of travel sketches, Mentone, Cairo, and Corfu (January 1896).
Note on the Texts
This volume contains twenty-three stories by Constance Fenimore Woolson selected from the two short story collections published in the author’s lifetime, Castle Nowhere: Lake-Country Sketches (1875) and Rodman the Keeper: Southern Sketches (1880); her two posthumously published collections, The Front Yard and Other Italian Stories (1895) and Dorothy and Other Italian Stories (1896); and her uncollected stories.
A popular and critically acclaimed writer in her lifetime who was compared to George Eliot, Woolson published her stories widely in American magazines until 1882, when she entered an exclusive arrangement with the New York firm Harper & Brothers. Thereafter, all her stories, sketches, essays, and books were published by the Harpers. In a letter of 1878 that was printed in The Ladies Home Journal, Woolson offered this picture of the busy, unpredictable life of a magazine writer: “When you first begin the magazines pay you about five dollars per page. . . . They pay me now much more, but that is entirely at their option. I get from seventy-five to one hundred dollars for a story; for the pictorial articles more. . . . Messrs. Harper and Appleton pay on acceptance; all others on publication. As they may have to delay publication it follows that authors of accepted manuscripts have sometimes to wait months and months for their pay. One thing is fixed; they won’t have the same contributor appear too often; it is against their policy. Supposing you get into ‘Harper’s,’ ‘The Galaxy,’ ‘The Atlantic,’ ‘Scribner’s,’ ‘Lippincott’s,’ and ‘Appleton’s’ once each year; you will then have, supposing your article to be of good length four hundred and fifty dollars. . . . But you see there is no certainty about it.”
Typically, Woolson revised her magazine stories for book publication; however, she did not make subsequent changes to the stories for later printings in her book collections. The Front Yard and Dorothy were published by Harper & Brothers not long after the author’s death, and it is likely that Woolson prepared the final manuscripts of these Italian stories with book publication in mind. Writing to her nephew Samuel Mather on December 30, 1893, less than a month before her death on January 24, 1894, she refers to a forthcoming “volume of my Italian stories.” No manuscripts or typescripts of the posthumously published stories—nor indeed of any others—survive. Furthermore, two of the posthumously published stories were significantly abridged in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine (“A Transplanted Boy” is discussed below). For all these reasons the texts of the stories presented here are taken from the first edition of the collections in which they appeared, except for the uncollected stories “‘Miss Grief’” and “On Sloane Street” (also discussed below). Although Woolson’s novels found publishers in London, none of her story collections appeared in British editions.
Castle Nowhere: Lake-Country Sketches was published in 1875 by the Boston firm James R. Osgood and Company. Little is known about the composition of these stories, but Woolson drew heavily on youthful memories of the Great Lakes area, rekindled in the years since her father’s death by short trips from Cleveland to Detroit and across Lake Huron to Mackinac Island and down the Ohio River. Because Osgood desired at least one unpublished story for the collection, the long title story, “Castle Nowhere,” was written for the book and included without prior magazine publication. The other eight stories came out first in magazines, and the six chosen for the present volume appeared as follows: “St. Clair Flats” in Appletons’ Journal, October 4, 1873; “Solomon” in The Atlantic Monthly, October 1873; “Peter the Parson” in Scribner’s Monthly, September 1874; “The Lady of Little Fishing” in The Atlantic Monthly, September 1874; “Jeannette” in Scribner’s Monthly, December 1874; and “Wilhelmina” in The Atlantic Monthly, January 1875. An undated abridged version of Castle Nowhere was published as Solomon & Other “Lake Country” Sketches by the Canadian publisher J. Neish & Sons. This volume prints the texts of the stories from the 1875 Osgood edition.
Beginning in 1873 Woolson wintered with her mother in Florida (and summered elsewhere on the East Coast), and this change of geography inspired her Southern stories. Rodman the Keeper: Southern Sketches was published by D. Appleton and Company to mostly positive reviews in June 1880. Among the favorable notices was one in the London Spectator (clipped from the paper by Henry James and mailed to his friend), which praised the collection for its “quite remarkable power.” Of the ten stories in the collection eight have been chosen for inclusion; they first appeared in the following magazines: “Miss Elisabetha” in Appletons’ Journal, March 13, 1875; “Old Gardiston” in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, April 1876; “In the Cotton Country” in Appletons’ Journal, April 29, 1876; “Felipa” in Lippincott’s Magazine, June 1876; “Rodman the Keeper” in The Atlantic Monthly, March 1877; “Sister St. Luke” in The Galaxy, April 1877; “King David” in Scribner’s Monthly, April 1878; and “The South Devil” in The Atlantic Monthly, February 1880. In 1886, Harper & Brothers reprinted Rodman the Keeper, using Appleton’s plates. This volume prints the texts of the stories from the 1880 Appleton edition.
The Front Yard and Other Italian Stories was published in September 1895 by Harper & Brothers, the first of two posthumous books that gathered Woolson’s Italian stories, all written after her departure from the United States in December 1879 (following her mother’s death in February 1879). All six stories in The Front Yard appeared in magazines
prior to their book publication. The three stories selected for this volume were published in the following magazines: “The Street of the Hyacinth” in The Century Magazine, May and June 1882; “A Pink Villa” in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, November 1888; and “The Front Yard” in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, December 1888. This volume prints the texts of the stories from the 1895 edition of The Front Yard.
Harper & Brothers brought out Dorothy and Other Italian Stories only four months after The Front Yard, in January 1896. The five stories in Dorothy appeared in magazines prior to the book’s publication. The long story “A Transplanted Boy” (included here) was published soon after the author’s death in a significantly shorter version in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine in February 1894—very likely an abridgment by the magazine’s editors. (“A Waitress”—not included here—also appeared in an abridged version in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine after Woolson’s death and prior to its publication in Dorothy.) The other three stories selected for this volume were published in the following magazines: “A Florentine Experiment” in The Atlantic Monthly, October 1880; “At the Château of Corinne” in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, October 1887; and “Dorothy” in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, March 1892. This volume prints the texts of the stories from the 1896 Harper & Brothers edition of Dorothy.
The first of Woolson’s stories to be written in Europe, “‘Miss Grief’” was published in Lippincott’s Magazine in May 1880 and was subsequently anthologized in Scribner’s Stories by American Authors (1884). Woolson appears to have revised the story for the Scribner’s anthology, although the differences between the two texts are primarily minor. An exception concerns the name of the narrator’s romantic interest, changed from “Ethelind” in Lippincott’s to “Isabel” in Stories by American Authors, perhaps a nod in the direction of Woolson’s friend Henry James and his protagonist Isabel Archer. Woolson did not meet James until spring 1880—that is, after she had written “‘Miss Grief’.” In a long letter of February 12, 1882, to James, Woolson expressed her admiration for The Portrait of a Lady: “I have come slowly to the conclusion that the ‘Portrait’ is the finest novel you have written. ‘Slowly,’ because I so much like the others, & hate to desert old friends. I did’nt completely yield until I had read the last two chapters. Then I had to. The scene between Goodwood & Isabel at the end is, in my opinion, by far the strongest scene of the kind you have given to the public.” This volume prints the 1884 text of “‘Miss Grief’” in Scribner’s Stories by American Authors.
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