Novel 199: Constance Fenimore Woolson, For the Major (1883)
A young lady returns home to a remote Appalachian village, where she finds her father and stepmother behaving mysteriously.
Here is another novel by Woolson, for whom see Novel 057. This novel, however, is as focused as the other is diffuse.
“For the Major is a book few Europeans, if any, could have written, concentrating, as it does, such nervous power and earnest sentiment upon purely domestic incident. . . . There are at least three creations in it of extreme merit” who “form a truly pathetic and truly beautiful group; very difficult to draw, but very well drawn indeed.” Academy, August 18, 1883
“The sketches of American life and character in a remote village in the south are quaint, interesting, and read life-like; and the whole slender edifice of the story, reminding us of the paper houses of Japan, holds well together.” Spectator, August 25, 1883
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