Anne

This is my third time reading Anne, a novel that first attracted me to Constance Fenimore Woolson (about whom I have written a biography). This time, I got to read it with a class of graduate students. What a thrill that has been. One of them spontaneously wrote to me this morning, "Anne was full of......more

In the end, I thought this book nearly as satisfying as Jane Eyre. It is a long book, densely, wonderfully written. Thanks to Com Toibin and his book on Henry James, I was introduced to Woolson, who will give me many hours of reading pleasure. The main character is a young woman in the wilds of Mich......more

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 th......more

This was unexpectedly good! Hadn't heard of the author until I read about her in David Lodge's Author, Author - she was in love and spurned by Henry James. Pity that she's faded away - definitely worth re-discovering, because although there was a rather unrealistic incident towards the end, on the w......more

This is a tale of two books: the first half drags along so languidly and placidly that you keep asking yourself, "does this book even have a discernible plot?" I got so frustrated with it that I almost quit reading a couple of different times, I'm glad I did not for I ended up really enjoying the bo......more