SOURCE: 'Anne: Woolson's Portrait of a Lady," in Constance Fenimore Woolson: The Grief of Artistry, University of Georgia Press, 1989, pp. 34-49.

In the essay that follows, Torsney compares Woolson 's first novel Anne with Henry James 's Portrait of a Lady, and contends that Woolson "adapted her literary inheritance from the domestics of earlier in the century to suit her original purposes."

Woolson's transitional position—on the one hand a member of the "scribbling" sorority, on the other an exile who isolated herself from society in order to devote herself to art—is best demonstrated, perhaps, by example. Woolson's earliest stories are reminiscent of the earlier fashions in women's writing discussed so thoroughly by Mary Kelly and Nina Baym, among others.¹ For example, the early piece "Duets" (1874) features two friends, Olive and Helena, who get what the other wants in a husband.² And although "Weighed in the...