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Castle Nowhere
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110 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 17, 2012
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About the author
Constance Fenimore Woolson
198 books37 followersConstance Fenimore Woolson (March 5, 1840 – January 24, 1894) was an American novelist, poet, and short story writer. She was a grandniece of James Fenimore Cooper, and is best known for fictions about the Great Lakes region, the American South, and American expatriates in Europe.
Woolson was born in Claremont, New Hampshire, but her family soon moved to Cleveland, Ohio, after the deaths of three of her sisters from scarlet fever. Woolson was educated at the Cleveland Female Seminary and a boarding school in New York. She traveled extensively through the midwest and northeastern regions of the U.S. during her childhood and young adulthood.
Woolson’s father died in 1869. The following year she began to publish fiction and essays in magazines such as The Atlantic Monthly and Harper's Magazine. Her first full-length publication was a children’s book, The Old Stone House (1873). In 1875 she published her first volume of short stories, Castle Nowhere: Lake-Country Sketches, based on her experiences in the Great Lakes region, especially Mackinac Island.
From 1873 to 1879 Woolson spent winters with her mother in St. Augustine, Florida. During these visits she traveled widely in the South which gave her material for her next collection of short stories, Rodman the Keeper: Southern Sketches (1880). After her mother’s death in 1879, Woolson went to Europe, staying at a succession of hotels in England, France, Italy, Switzerland and Germany.
Woolson published her first novel Anne in 1880, followed by three others: East Angels (1886), Jupiter Lights (1889) and Horace Chase (1894). In 1883 she published the novella For the Major, a story of the postwar South that has become one of her most respected fictions. In the winter of 1889–1890 she traveled to Egypt and Greece, which resulted in a collection of travel sketches, Mentone, Cairo and Corfu (published posthumously in 1896).
In 1893 Woolson rented an elegant apartment on the Grand Canal of Venice. Suffering from influenza and depression, she either jumped or fell to her death from a window in the apartment in January 1894. Two volumes of her short stories appeared after her death: The Front Yard and Other Italian Stories (1895) and Dorothy and Other Italian Stories (1896). She is buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome, and is memorialized by Anne's Tablet on Mackinac Island, Michigan.
Woolson’s short stories have long been regarded as pioneering examples of local color or regionalism. Today, Woolson's novels, short stories, poetry, and travelogues are studied and taught from a range of scholarly and critical perspectives, including feminist, psychoanalytic, gender studies, postcolonial, and new historicism.
(from Wikipedia)
Woolson was born in Claremont, New Hampshire, but her family soon moved to Cleveland, Ohio, after the deaths of three of her sisters from scarlet fever. Woolson was educated at the Cleveland Female Seminary and a boarding school in New York. She traveled extensively through the midwest and northeastern regions of the U.S. during her childhood and young adulthood.
Woolson’s father died in 1869. The following year she began to publish fiction and essays in magazines such as The Atlantic Monthly and Harper's Magazine. Her first full-length publication was a children’s book, The Old Stone House (1873). In 1875 she published her first volume of short stories, Castle Nowhere: Lake-Country Sketches, based on her experiences in the Great Lakes region, especially Mackinac Island.
From 1873 to 1879 Woolson spent winters with her mother in St. Augustine, Florida. During these visits she traveled widely in the South which gave her material for her next collection of short stories, Rodman the Keeper: Southern Sketches (1880). After her mother’s death in 1879, Woolson went to Europe, staying at a succession of hotels in England, France, Italy, Switzerland and Germany.
Woolson published her first novel Anne in 1880, followed by three others: East Angels (1886), Jupiter Lights (1889) and Horace Chase (1894). In 1883 she published the novella For the Major, a story of the postwar South that has become one of her most respected fictions. In the winter of 1889–1890 she traveled to Egypt and Greece, which resulted in a collection of travel sketches, Mentone, Cairo and Corfu (published posthumously in 1896).
In 1893 Woolson rented an elegant apartment on the Grand Canal of Venice. Suffering from influenza and depression, she either jumped or fell to her death from a window in the apartment in January 1894. Two volumes of her short stories appeared after her death: The Front Yard and Other Italian Stories (1895) and Dorothy and Other Italian Stories (1896). She is buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome, and is memorialized by Anne's Tablet on Mackinac Island, Michigan.
Woolson’s short stories have long been regarded as pioneering examples of local color or regionalism. Today, Woolson's novels, short stories, poetry, and travelogues are studied and taught from a range of scholarly and critical perspectives, including feminist, psychoanalytic, gender studies, postcolonial, and new historicism.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 10, 2018
3.5
This edition contains only three stories: Castle Nowhere, Jeannette and The Old Agency. The last two are set on Mackinac Island in Lake Huron (as is the beginning of Woolson’s first novel, Anne. The first story is set nearby, though the exact location is purposely mysterious as fitting with its plot. Perhaps it‘s set in Cheneaux, an island group of sheltered channels and bays within the Straits of Mackinac, where a visiting character in the final story lives.
The setting of the title story reminded me quite a bit of the labyrinthine “enchanted region” (Woolson's words) of her short story St. Clair Flats, though it’s not as realistic as the latter. I was strongly reminded of a fairy tale with the young woman’s innocence and with the description of a room in the floating house (the “Castle”) that brought to my mind the home of the seven dwarfs. The awakening and vagaries of the man’s love, and his misunderstanding of the woman’s, are themes Woolson develops further in East Angels. 4 stars
In the second story the condescension of the white characters toward the mixed-race characters is a main theme; it's to be hoped her readers ended up realizing (Woolson in her realism does not moralize) that just because the “half-breeds” (French and Native American) are ‘different’ from the white members of the garrison doesn’t mean they are inferior. 3.5 stars
The final story is an extension of the previous one, the same narrator returning to the island several years after the Civil War is over. While the story didn't affect me as strongly as the others, it excels in the setting and the sense of a world that swiftly disappeared, as do the others. 3 stars
These three stories are part of Castle Nowhere: Lake-Country Sketches, which also includes Solomon and St. Clair Flats, both of which I read in Miss Grief and Other Stories. Now to hunt out the rest of the stories in Castle Nowhere: Lake-Country Sketches as I think I’m on my way to becoming a Woolson-completist, at least of her fiction.
This edition contains only three stories: Castle Nowhere, Jeannette and The Old Agency. The last two are set on Mackinac Island in Lake Huron (as is the beginning of Woolson’s first novel, Anne. The first story is set nearby, though the exact location is purposely mysterious as fitting with its plot. Perhaps it‘s set in Cheneaux, an island group of sheltered channels and bays within the Straits of Mackinac, where a visiting character in the final story lives.
The setting of the title story reminded me quite a bit of the labyrinthine “enchanted region” (Woolson's words) of her short story St. Clair Flats, though it’s not as realistic as the latter. I was strongly reminded of a fairy tale with the young woman’s innocence and with the description of a room in the floating house (the “Castle”) that brought to my mind the home of the seven dwarfs. The awakening and vagaries of the man’s love, and his misunderstanding of the woman’s, are themes Woolson develops further in East Angels. 4 stars
In the second story the condescension of the white characters toward the mixed-race characters is a main theme; it's to be hoped her readers ended up realizing (Woolson in her realism does not moralize) that just because the “half-breeds” (French and Native American) are ‘different’ from the white members of the garrison doesn’t mean they are inferior. 3.5 stars
The final story is an extension of the previous one, the same narrator returning to the island several years after the Civil War is over. While the story didn't affect me as strongly as the others, it excels in the setting and the sense of a world that swiftly disappeared, as do the others. 3 stars
These three stories are part of Castle Nowhere: Lake-Country Sketches, which also includes Solomon and St. Clair Flats, both of which I read in Miss Grief and Other Stories. Now to hunt out the rest of the stories in Castle Nowhere: Lake-Country Sketches as I think I’m on my way to becoming a Woolson-completist, at least of her fiction.
March 15, 2016
Castle Nowhere is a trio of short stories from the grandniece of James Fenimore Cooper.
In the title piece, which is considerably the most substantial, a lonesome young outdoorsman called Jarvis Waring is adventuring in the wilderness bordering the head of Lake Michigan when he encounters an old man named Fog, who robs him in the night.
Waring pursues the old man and by chance finds his unlikely abode, an isolated castle made of logs also inhabited by his guileless young daughter, Silver, who he has raised over the years completely in ignorance of society or religion.
'Jeannette' tells of an uneducated fisherman's daughter who lived below Fort Mackinac in the years just before the Civil War, and whose form 'showed the mixed beauties of three nationalities'.
An army wife decides to make her her protege, hoping to elevate her in the mind of a young surgeon, who appears to be unimpressed with her wild charms.
Finally, 'The Old Agency' is an affecting elegy to a rambling house on the Mackinac coast which was burnt down on New Year's Eve, 18-. The author once stayed there, where she heard the tale of Grenadier Jacques, a wandering French soldier from Napoleon's army, who lived out his last, meagre days there after it had been deserted.
Well written and surprisingly unsentimental.
In the title piece, which is considerably the most substantial, a lonesome young outdoorsman called Jarvis Waring is adventuring in the wilderness bordering the head of Lake Michigan when he encounters an old man named Fog, who robs him in the night.
Waring pursues the old man and by chance finds his unlikely abode, an isolated castle made of logs also inhabited by his guileless young daughter, Silver, who he has raised over the years completely in ignorance of society or religion.
'Jeannette' tells of an uneducated fisherman's daughter who lived below Fort Mackinac in the years just before the Civil War, and whose form 'showed the mixed beauties of three nationalities'.
An army wife decides to make her her protege, hoping to elevate her in the mind of a young surgeon, who appears to be unimpressed with her wild charms.
Finally, 'The Old Agency' is an affecting elegy to a rambling house on the Mackinac coast which was burnt down on New Year's Eve, 18-. The author once stayed there, where she heard the tale of Grenadier Jacques, a wandering French soldier from Napoleon's army, who lived out his last, meagre days there after it had been deserted.
Well written and surprisingly unsentimental.
December 21, 2020
Una storia bellissima. Tante emozioni!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews