Constance Fenimore Woolson, Rodman the Keeper: Southern Sketches

Leonardo Buonomo (Universita degli studi di Trieste)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.2: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Nineteenth Century, 1783-1900.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1880

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Story Collection

Resources

In an essay published in Harper’s Weekly (1887), and later included in Partial Portraits (1888), Henry James described Constance Fenimore Woolson’s collection Rodman the Keeper: Southern Sketches (1880) as “the fruit of a remarkable minuteness of observation and tenderness of feeling on the part of one who evidently did not glance and pass, but lingered and analysed”. Particularly praiseworthy, in James’s view, was the sensitivity with which Woolson had responded to the “voicelessness of the conquered and reconstructed South”, and her “compassionate sense of this pathetic dumbness”. Indeed Woolson, a northener who had come to know the South intimately as a result of her sojourn …

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

1068 words

Citation: Buonomo, Leonardo. "Rodman the Keeper: Southern Sketches". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 22 October 2005 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=2337, accessed 22 November 2024.]

Save this article