Castle Nowhere

Constance Fenimore Woolson was the grandniece of James Fenimore Cooper. She was an American novelist and short story writer. She often wrote about the Great Lakes region, the American South, and American expatriates in Europe. Her first full-length publication was a children's book, The Old Stone House (1873). In 1875 she published Castle Nowhere: Lake-Country Sketches, based on her experiences in the Great Lakes region. The sketches have a surreal quality about them. Her prose reads much like poetry. An excerpt reads, The bolt and the logs shut him in safely; he was young and strong, and there were his pistols. 'Unless they burn down their old castle,' he said to himself, 'they cannot harm me.' And then he fell to thinking of the lovely childlike girl, and his heart grew soft. 'Poor old man,' he said, 'how he must have worked and stolen and starved to keep her safe and warm in this far-away nest of his hidden in the fogs! I won't betray the old fellow, and I'll go to-morrow. Do you hear that, Jarvis Waring? I'll go to morrow!' And then the Spirit, who had been listening as usual, folded himself up silently and flew away.