The Other Face of History in Constance Fenimore Woolson's Southern Stories

Abstract

In an essay included in Partial Portraits ([1888] 1988),1 Henry James noted that an "interest in secret histories" (272) was one of the most distinctive traits of Constance Fenimore Woolson (1840-1894). What renders the ex- pression "secret histories" intriguing is that it suggests narratives that need to be unveiled, recovered, and that can both complete, and dispute, official History. It is, moreover, a definition that strikes me as admirably fitting the stories of bereavement, alienation, and defeat that Woolson set in the South of the United States in the aftermath of the Civil War.