Constance Fenimore Woolson

by Anne Boyd Rioux

  26. HJ, “Miss Woolson,” 171.

  27. CFW, Notebooks, Benedict II, 102–3. In 1887, she was reading Augustine Birrell and James Russell Lowell, who is also mentioned nearby. The story idea about Mrs. B. appears to have been written afterward. See CFW, Notebooks, Benedict II, 107–8.

  28. Gordon, in A Private Life, 286, describes how in “The Beast in the Jungle” HJ used CFW’s story idea, outlined in her notebooks, about a man to whom nothing ever happens.

  CHAPTER 12: Arcadia Lost

  1. CFW to ECS, Feb. 24, [1887], CL, 333. CFW to Linda Guilford, Mar. 1, 1887, CL, 336. CFW to SM, Jan. 22, [1888], CL, 354.

  2. CFW’s copy of Augustine Birrell’s Obiter Dicta, 2nd ser., at Rollins; marginalia on p. 229. CFW’s copy of Poems from Shelley at Non-Catholic Cemetery, Rome. CFW’s copy of Margaret Woods’s A Village Tragedy at Claremont Historical Society, Claremont, NH. CFW to SM, Jan. 22, [1888], CL, 355. CFW to JH, Aug. 6, [1887], CL, 347. CFW to JH, Dec. 20, [1890], CL, 434.

  3. HJ to Alice H. James, Apr. 24, 1887, Houghton, Ms Am 1237.16.

  4. Elizabeth Boott Duveneck to FB, July 7, [1887], Frank Duveneck and Elizabeth Boott Duveneck Papers, 1851–1972, Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Art, Washington, DC. CFW to FB, Sept. 11, [1890], Duveneck Family.

  5. CFW to JH, Aug. 6, [1887], CL, 348. “Pen Picture of Mrs. Burnett,” The Richfield Springs (NY) Mercury, Mar. 27, 1890. CFW to SM, Jan. 22, [1888], CL, 355.

  6. HJ to Elizabeth Boott, Jan. 29, [1888], Houghton, MS Am 1094.580. The letter is incorrectly marked as [1887?].

  7. Josephine W. Duveneck, Frank Duveneck: Painter-Teacher (San Francisco: John Howell-Books, 1970), 120. Carol M. Osborne, “Lizzie Boott at Bellosguardo,” in The Italian Presence in American Art, 1860–1920, ed. Irma B. Jaffe (Bronx, NY: Fordham University Press, 1992), 198. Osborne convincingly refutes Jean Strouse’s speculation in Alice James: A Biography (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980) that Lizzie may have committed suicide, see p. 199 n. 15.

  8. HJ to Henrietta Reubell, Apr. 1, 1888, HJL3, 230–31. HJ to FB, May 15, [1888], HJL3, 233. HJ quoted in Fred Kaplan, Henry James: The Imagination of Genius: A Biography (New York: William Morrow, 1992), 325. Leon Edel speculates that CFW gave HJ the description. See Henry James: The Middle Years, 1882–1895 (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1962), 248.

  9. CRB to Leon Edel, July 23, [1953], McGill. CFW to FB, Sept. 15, [1888], Duveneck Family.

  10. HJ to FB, Apr. 3, [1888], HJL3, 232.

  11. Duveneck, Frank Duveneck, 123–24. CRB to Leon Edel, July 23, [1953], McGill. CFW to FB, Mar. 4, [1889], Duveneck Family.

  12. CFW to FB, Aug. 7, [1888], Duveneck Family.

  13. CFW to FB, Aug. 7, [1888]; CFW to FB, Mar. 14, [1893], Duveneck Family.

  14. CFW to FB, Aug. 7, [1888]; CFW to FB, Sept. 15, [1888]; CFW to FB, Dec. 13, [1888], Duveneck Family.

  15. CFW to FB, Sept. 15, [1888], Duveneck Family.

  16. HJ to WWB, July 3, [1888], Pierpont Morgan. CFW to SM, Aug. 22, [1888], CL, 358.

  17. HJ to FB, Oct. 29, [1888], HJL3, 247. HJ to FB, May 15, [1888], HJL3, 233. CFW’s copy of The Aspern Papers, Louisa Pallant, The Modern Warning at University of Basel.

  18. HJ to FB, Oct. 29, [1888], HJL3, 247, 246. CFW to FB, Dec. 13, [1888]; CFW to FB, Nov. 27, [1889], Duveneck Family.

  19. HJ quoted in Edel, The Middle Years, 250. Alice James quoted in Strouse, Alice James, 259.

  20. CWB to May Harris, n.d., Benedict III, 589.

  21. CFW to Daniel Willard Fiske, Dec. 4, [1888], Cornell. The undated letters at Cornell mention many gifts. Quote about Fiske in Horatio S. White, “A Sketch of the Life and Labors of Professor Willard Fiske,” The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, vol. 12 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1919), 84.

  22. CFW to Daniel Willard Fiske, Dec. 4, [1888], Cornell.

  23. CFW to FB, Mar. 4, [1889], Duveneck Family. CFW, “A Pink Villa,” Harper’s 77 (Nov. 1888): 856.

  24. CFW to SM, Feb. 27, [1889], CL, 367. Caroline Gebhard, “Romantic Love and Wife-Battering in Constance Fenimore Woolson’s Jupiter Lights,” in Constance Fenimore Woolson’s Nineteenth Century: Essays, ed. Victoria Brehm (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2001), 83–96.

  25. CFW, Jupiter Lights (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1889), 17.

  26. Ibid., 11, 292. CFW to SM, Jan. 16, [1884], CL, 269. HJ quoted in Edel, The Middle Years, 208.

  27. CFW, Jupiter Lights, 142, 234, 163.

  28. Ibid., 179, 257.

  29. CFW to FB, Feb. 7, [1890], Duveneck Family.

  30. CFW, Jupiter Lights, 340, 347.

  31. Ibid., 79.

  32. Ibid., 90.

  33. Caroline Halstead Royce, “Remembered Books,” New York Times, Jan. 28, 1899, p. BR60.

  34. CWB to KM, Jan. 27, 1889, Mather Family Papers, WRHS. “In reality, Clara gave [the party],” CFW wrote to SM, Feb. 27, [1889], CL, 365. CFW to WWB, [1889], CL, 363. CFW to Henry Mills Alden, Aug. 23, 1889, CL, 381.

  35. HJ to FB, Jan. 18, 1889, HJL3, 249. CFW to SM, Feb. 27, [1889], CL, 366. Edward N. Akin, Flagler: Rockefeller Partner and Florida Baron (Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press, 1988), 116.

  36. CFW to SM, Jan. 12, [1888], CL, 352. CFW to Mary Mapes Dodge, Sept. 13, [1888?], CL, 360. CFW to FB, Aug. 23, [1889]; CFW to FB, Mar. 4, [1889], Duveneck Family.

  37. CFW to FB, Mar. 13, [1889], Duveneck Family. CFW to KM, 1889, CL, 370. CFW to FB, Nov. 27, [1889], Duveneck Family. CFW to Daniel Willard Fiske, May 13, [1889], CL, 369. CFW to Daniel Willard Fiske, Friday, n.d., Cornell.

  38. CFW to Daniel Willard Fiske, Friday, n.d., Cornell. (This is a different letter than the one quoted above.) CFW to ECS, Aug. 10, [1889], CL, 377. CFW to SM, July 6, [1889], CL, 373. CFW to WWB, July 13, [1889], CL, 374. CFW to SM, Aug. 13, [1889], CL, 378.

  39. CFW to SM, Oct. 16, [1889], CL, 383. CFW to SM, Nov. 4, 1890, CL, 427.

  40. CFW to FB, Nov. 27, [1889], Duveneck Family. CFW to SM, Aug. 13, [1889], CL, 378.

  41. CFW’s copy of The Teaching of Epictetus (London: Walter Scott, 1888) is at Rollins. Pages torn out are 55–58, 66–68, and 71–72. Marked passages are on pp. 135 and 200. Someone later tried to erase her markings on p. 200.

  42. CRB to Stella Gray, June 22, [1956], in possession of recipient. CFW, Jupiter Lights, 307.

  43. CFW to SM, Aug. 13, [1889], CL, 378.

  44. CFW to FB, Aug. 23, [1889], Duveneck Family. CFW to SM, Aug. 13, 1889, CL, 379. CFW to Henry Mills Alden, Aug. 23, 1889, CL, 380.

  45. CFW to Daniel Willard Fiske, Oct. 16, [1889], Cornell. CFW to SM, Oct. 16, [1889], CL, 383. CFW to FB, Nov. 27, [1889], Duveneck Family.

  46. CFW to SM, Feb. 25, 1890, CL, 403. “Recent Fiction,” The Independent 43 (Nov. 28, 1889): 16. Review of Jupiter Lights, The Book Buyer 6 (Dec. 1, 1889): 453. “Harpers for September,” New York Herald, Aug. 23, 1899, p. 2. The Spectator quoted in a Harper & Brothers advertisement, New York Herald, Oct. 30, 1899, p. 7. “Novels of the Week,” The Athenaeum, no. 3247 (Jan. 18, 1890): 81.

  47. Horace Scudder, “Recent American Fiction,” Atlantic Monthly 65 (Jan. 1890): 127, 128. “Talk About New Books,” Catholic World 50 (Mar. 1890): 826, 827.

  48. CFW to SM, Apr. 17, [1890], CL, 409. “Recent Fiction,” The Nation (Mar. 13, 1890): 225.

  49. CFW to SM, Feb. 25, 1890, CL, 403. Sales figures in Rayburn Moore, Constance Fenimore Woolson (New York: Twayne, 1963), 159. CFW to SM, Dec. 8, [1889], CL, 388.

  CHAPTER 13: To Cairo and Back

  1. CFW, “Corfu and the Ionian Sea,” in Mentone, Cairo, and Corfu (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1896), 284.

  2. CFW to SM, Jan. 5, 1890, CL, 392. CFW, “Corfu,” 286, 290.

  3. CFW to SM, Jan. 5, 1890, CL, 390, 391.

  4. CFW to SM, Jan. 5, 1890, CL, 391. CWB to Elizabeth (“Libbie”) Gwinn Mather, Jan. 30, 1890, typescript, Mather Family Papers, WRHS. CFW, “Corfu,” 355.

  5. CFW to Henry Mills Alden, Jan. 17, 1890, CL, 396.

  6. CWB to Elizabeth (“Libbie”) Gwinn Mather, Jan.
30, 1890, typescript, Mather Family Papers, WRHS. CFW to Henry Mills Alden, Jan. 17, 1890, CL, 396, 397.

  7. CFW to Daniel Willard Fiske, Feb. 19, [1890], Cornell.

  8. CWB to Elizabeth (“Libbie”) Gwinn Mather, Jan. 30, 1890, in typescript, Mather Family Papers, WRHS. CFW to SM, Feb. 25, 1890, CL, 404. CFW to SM, Jan. 31, 1890, CL, 399.

  9. CWB to Samuel L. Mather, Mar. 4, 1890, typescript, Mather Family Papers, WRHS. CFW to SM, Feb. 25, 1890, CL, 403. CWB to Elizabeth (“Libbie”) Gwinn Mather, Jan. 30, 1890, typescript, Mather Family Papers, WRHS.

  10. CFW to SM, Apr. 17, 1890, CL, 406–7. CWB to Samuel L. Mather, Mar. 4, 1890, typescript, Mather Family Papers, WRHS.

  11. CFW to Flora Stone Mather, n.d., CL, 553. Eugene Schuyler, Selected Essays with a Memoir by Evelyn Schuyler Schaeffer (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1901), 198. CFW to JH, Dec. 20, 1890, CL, 436.

  12. CFW to SM, Apr. 17, [1890], CL, 408–9. CFW to Flora Stone Mather, [1890], CL, 438.

  13. CFW to SM, Apr. 17, [1890], CL, 408.

  14. CFW to KM, June 12, 1890, CL, 415. CFW, “Cairo in 1890,” in Mentone, Cairo, and Corfu, 158, 160.

  15. CFW, “Cairo in 1890,” 156, 236–38. CFW to Henry Mills Alden, May 20, [1890], CL, 413–14.

  16. CFW, “Cairo in 1890,” 177.

  17. Ibid., 232, 224, 225.

  18. Ibid., 193, 220. CFW’s prediction was incorrect; Al-Azhar University in Cairo remains today a center of Islamic learning.

  19. Ibid., 276–77. CFW to WWB, Dec. 17, [1893], CL, 542. Praying Arab figurine at Rollins.

  20. CFW, “Cairo in 1890,” 208, 211.

  21. Ibid., 278, 279. CFW to JH, Dec. 20, [1890], CL, 435.

  22. CFW to WWB, Aug. 17, [1890], CL, 418. HJ to FB, Apr. 23, 1890, Houghton, MS Am 1094.609.

  23. CFW to Henry Mills Alden, May 11, [1890], CL, 411. CFW’s copy of God in His World in Clare Benedict Collection, WRHS; quoted passage and marginalia on p. 33. Lines in both margins also mark the passage.

  24. CFW to Henry Mills Alden, May 11, [1890], CL, 412–13.

  25. CFW to Katharine Loring, Sept. 19, [1890], CL, 421. CFW to KM, [June 12, 1890], CL, 415.

  26. CFW to FB, Sept. 11 and Sept. 17, [1890], Duveneck Family. HJ speaks of his upcoming “pious pilgrimage” to Bellosguardo in HJ to FB, Apr. 23, 1890, Houghton, MS Am 1094.609. He stayed with Baldwin in Florence in July. HJ to WWB, Sept. 29, [1890], Pierpont Morgan. CFW told WWB that HJ spent “two days” with her; Oct. 5, [1890], CL, 423. He most likely stayed at the Queen’s Hotel up the street or in the apartment below her; both are mentioned in letters to other visitors.

  27. CFW to Katharine Loring, Sept. 19, [1890], CL, 421. CFW to WWB, Oct. 5, [1890], CL, 423. CFW to FB, Nov. 23, [1890], Duveneck Family.

  28. CFW to Katharine Loring, Sept. 19, [1890], CL, 422. William James’s report in Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. 6 (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1890), 660. CFW to JH, Dec. 20, [1890], CL, 437. CFW to FB, Jan. 9, [1890], Duveneck Family.

  29. CFW to FB, Sept. 17, [1890], Duveneck Family. CFW to FB, Nov. 23, [1890], Duveneck Family. CFW to SM, Nov. 4, 1890, CL, 428.

  30. CFW to SM, Oct. 31, [1890], CL, 425. CFW to SM, Oct. 9, [1890], CL, 424.

  31. HJ to FB, Dec. 19, 1890, Houghton, MS Am 1094.611. CFW to SM, Dec. 15, [1890], CL, 431. England has eight hours of daily sunlight during December; CFW must be exaggerating for effect or referring to the grayness of the days.

  32. CFW to FB, Jan. 9, [1891], Duveneck Family. CFW to SM, Jan. 21, 1891, CL, 439.

  33. CFW to FB, May 2, [1891], Duveneck Family. CFW, “Dorothy,” Harper’s 84 (Mar. 1892): 562.

  34. Ibid., 563.

  35. Ibid., 566, 570.

  36. Ibid., 574, 575.

  37. CFW to FB, Feb. 28, [1892], Duveneck Family.

  38. CFW to SM, Jan. 21, 1891, CL, 442, 441.

  39. HJ to Alice James and Katharine Loring, [Jan. 4, 1891], HJL3, 320.

  40. CFW to FB, Feb. 28, [1891], Duveneck Family.

  41. CFW to FB, May 2, [1891], Duveneck Family. CFW to FB, Feb. 28, [1891], Duveneck Family. CFW to WWB, Jan. 25, [1891], CL, 444.

  42. HJ to FB, Mar. 24, [1891], Houghton, MS Am 1094.612. CFW to FB, Feb. 28, [1891], Duveneck Family.

  43. HJ quoted in Leon Edel, Henry James: The Middle Years, 1882–1895 (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1962), 287. CFW to SM, Jan. 21, 1891, CL, 442.

  44. CFW to FB, Nov. 23, [1890], Duveneck Family. CFW to SM, Nov. 4, 1890, CL, 427.

  45. CFW to FB, Feb. 28, [1891], Duveneck Family. CFW to SM, Feb. 23, [1891], CL, 447.

  46. CFW to FB, May 2, [1891], Duveneck Family. See also KM to SM, May 29, 1891, Mather Family Papers, WRHS. CRB to Leon Edel, Jan. 29, 1948, McGill. This comment was in response to Edel’s question about whether CFW stayed in England to be near HJ. His nearness, she insisted, was but one benefit of living in England.

  CHAPTER 14: Oxford

  1. Jean Strouse, Alice James: A Biography (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980), 305; quote from HJ on p. 306.

  2. HJ to WWB, [July 25, 1891], Pierpont Morgan. HJ to FB, July 29, [1891], Houghton, MS Am 1094.615.

  3. James D. Symon, “Oriel Bill,” English Illustrated Magazine 11 (Feb. 1894): 455–56.

  4. CFW to FB, Nov. 21, [1891], Duveneck Family.

  5. CFW to Flora Stone Mather, [1891], CL, 462. CFW to SM, Oct. 16, [1891], CL, 459.

  6. CFW to Flora Stone Mather, [1891], CL, 461–62.

  7. CFW to SM, Oct. 16, [1891], CL, 459. CFW to FB, Nov. 21, [1891], Duveneck Family. CFW to KM, Oct. 20, 1891, CL, 460. Premiere described in Leon Edel, Henry James: The Middle Years, 1882–1895 (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1962), 297–99; and Fred Kaplan, Henry James: The Imagination of Genius: A Biography (New York: William Morrow, 1992), 344–45. HJ to WWB, Oct. 19, 1891, in Philip Horne, ed., Henry James: A Life in Letters (New York: Viking, 1999), 242.

  8. CFW to FB, Nov. 21, [1891], Duveneck Family.

  9. CFW to Linda Thayer Guilford, [1891], CL, 465. CFW to FB, Nov. 21, [1891], Duveneck Family.

  10. CFW to FB, Nov. 21, [1891], Duveneck Family.

  11. CFW to SM, Jan. 9, [1893], CL, 499–500. On the English Library series, see Clement Vollmer, The American Novel in Germany, 1871–1913 (Philadelphia: International Printing, 1918), 26–27.

  12. HJ to WWB, Dec. 29, 1891, Pierpont Morgan.

  13. CFW to WWB, Feb. 5, [1892], CL, 467. CFW to FB, Feb. 21, [1892], Duveneck Family. “Statistics of the Influenza Epidemic,” The British Medical Journal 1 (Jan. 23, 1892): 190.

  14. CFW to WWB, Feb. 5 and Feb. 6, [1892], CL, 467, 469. CFW to SM, Feb, 8, [1892], CL, 470.

  15. CFW to WWB, Feb. 6, [1892], CL, 468, 469. CFW to SM, Feb, 8, [1892], CL, 470.

  16. CFW to SM, May 20, [1892], CL, 476.

  17. CRB to Leon Edel, Jan. 29, 1948, McGill. CFW to SM, Nov. 24, [1892], CL, 492. CFW to SM, [Jan. 1893], CL, 496.

  18. CFW to FB, Feb. 21, [1892], Duveneck Family.

  19. CFW to FB, Feb. 21, [1892], Duveneck Family. CFW to WWB, Feb. 6, [1892], CL, 469. Only a small fragment of a letter survives, in BHS, written by CFW and addressed, I believe, to Alice James. It was written when HJ had jaundice in Venice in 1887.

  20. Strouse, Alice James, 312.

  21. CFW to SM, May 20, [1892], CL, 476. HJ to FB, Mar. 9, [1892], HJL3, 382.

  22. CFW to SM, Apr. 29, [1893], CL, 512. Lyndall Gordon, A Private Life of Henry James: Two Women and His Art (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998), 249. Edel also acknowledges the possibility that the message was about their relationship but doesn’t examine it further. See The Middle Years, 318.

  23. HJ to FB, Mar. 9, [1892], HJL3, 381.

  24. Benedict III, 605. CFW to SM, July 15, [1892], CL, 482.

  25. CFW to SM, Jan. 21, [1892], CL, 466. CFW to SM, Feb. 15, [1892], CL, 473. “Archives of Harper and Brothers, 1817–1914,” microfilm (Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healey, 1980), Butler Library, Columbia University, reel 34 F2. CFW to Henry Mills Alden, June 30, [1892], CL, 480.

  26. CFW to FB
, Feb. 21, [1892], Duveneck Family.

  27. CFW to SM, Oct. 14, [1892], CL, 488. There are no surviving letters from CFW to FB from between April 1892 and January 1893.

  28. HJ, “The Lesson of the Master,” in Selected Tales (New York: Penguin, 2001), 145. CFW to SM, Feb. 27, [1889], CL, 364.

  29. This is the only story CFW published in Harper’s Bazar, and there is no conceivable reason why Alden would not have wanted the story for Harper’s. She had published in Harper’s only twice since Jupiter Lights finished its run in September 1889.

  30. CFW, “In Sloane Street,” Harper’s Bazar 25 (June 11, 1892): 474.

  31. Ibid., 474.

  32. Gordon, in A Private Life, believes Gertrude is a secret writer (251). Marie Bashkirtseff, The Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff, vol. 2 (London: Cassell, 1890), 103–4. CFW, “In Sloane Street,” 475.

  33. CFW, “In Sloane Street,” 475, 477.

  34. Ibid., 475.

  35. Sheldon M. Novick, Henry James: The Mature Master (New York: Random House, 2007), 204. Kaplan, The Imagination of Genius, 313. Gordon, A Private Life, 198. HJ quoted in CRB to Leon Edel, July 23, [1953], McGill.

  36. HJ, “The Middle Years,” in Tales of Henry James (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003), 211.

  37. CFW to SM, Apr. 29, [1893], CL, 512.

  38. CFW to KM, Dec. 27, [1892], CL, 493. CFW to SM, May 20, [1892], CL, 477. CFW to SM, Nov. 4, 1890, CL, 428. CFW to SM, Jan. 9, [1893], CL, 498.

  39. CFW to SM, Mar. 14, [1893], CL, 506. CFW, “Mottoes, Maxims, Reflections,” Rollins. CFW to FB, Mar. 4, [1889], Duveneck Family.

  40. CFW to Henry Mills Alden, June 30, [1892], CL, 481, 480.

  41. CFW to SM, Jan. 9, [1892], CL, 498, 499.

  42. CFW, Horace Chase (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1894), 283.

  43. See CFW to KM, Dec. 27, [1892], CL, 493. The chant appears on pp. 4–5 of Horace Chase.

  44. CFW, Horace Chase, 255, 340–41, 419. CFW to Henry Mills Alden, June 30, [1892?], CL, 481.

  45. CFW, Horace Chase, 212, 9, 30–31.

  46. Ibid., 160, 175.

  47. Ibid., 80–81, 18.

  48. CFW, “Mottoes, Maxims, Reflections,” Rollins.

  49. CFW to SM, Jan. 9, [1893], CL, 500. CFW to FB, Jan. 9, [1893], Duveneck Family.