The working title for my biography of Woolson obviously refers to Henry James’s now-classic novel. Let me explain why I chose it. After reading The Portrait of a Lady, Woolson wrote to the author about his heroine, Isabel Archer, “With no character of yours have I ever felt myself so much in sympathy.” She experienced with Isabel “a perfect . . . comprehension,…
Further thoughts about Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and Constance Fenimore Woolson: One of my favorite passages from Woolf’s extended essay is: One must have been something of a firebrand to say to oneself, ‘Oh, but they [men] can’t buy literature too.’ Literature is open to everybody. . . . Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no…
The grading is done, the semester is over, and the manuscript beckons. As my mind tries to find its way back into the book, I have been re-reading Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. I have copied down so many passages that have made me reflect on Woolson’s life and work. I wonder if Woolf would have thought any differently about the…
Back to revising chapter one. I have already cut out 600 words--no small feat. But there is one piece that could never be removed. Although Constance was only weeks old when it happened, it would shape the rest of her life. Here is how I describe it: Only two days after Constance’s birth, her five older sisters came down with fevers, and ominous…
I am happy to report that my biography of Woolson has found a publisher. Here is the announcement that appeared in Publisher’s Marketplace: Professor at University of New Orleans Anne Boyd Rioux's PORTRAIT OF A LADY NOVELIST, the first biography of Constance Fenimore Woolson, a critically acclaimed 19th century American writer who served as the model for her friend Henry James's "Portrait of…
It hasn't been easy to keep Woolson in my life since I returned to teaching this fall. I've taught her stories "Miss Grief" and "Jeannette" in my American Literature Survey class. But presenting a paper at the South Central Modern Language Association conference here in New Orleans last week gave me the opportunity (or should I say made me make the time) to…
I wrote a couple of months ago about searching for an appropriate way to end Woolson’s biography, so I should be done with the manuscript, right? Not exactly. This summer, I have reached a new stage in my writing that is anything but the end. In some ways it feels like starting over. But really it is all just part of the process,…
On a recent trip to New York I had another close encounter with Woolson when I least expected it. On my trip to England and Italy, I was specifically in search of her, and at three precise moments I felt very close to her, as if I had come upon her in the real world, and not merely in the pages of her…
Where should a biography begin? Now that I am in the revision stage, more or less, I’ve gone back the start of it all, which I haven’t seen in two years. Typically a life story starts with birth and a discussion of the subject’s antecedents, particularly the parents and their lineages. Rather boring stuff, usually. Yet a certain degree of family history is…
We live in an age of self-promotion: twitter, facebook--need I add blogging? A blog post by Nancy K. Miller about how Emily Dickinson might feel about our era’s publicity-consciousness got me thinking about how Woolson felt about her own literary celebrity. She loved it and hated it at the same time. She wanted recognition, but she didn’t want to ask for it and…