THE LADY NOVELIST Constance Fenimore Woolson

19th century / Italy / North America / Travel / United States / Writers

A woman with a pleasant expression and elaborately braided bun and high-collared 19th century dress is shown in profile.Constance Fenimore Woolson was one of the most popular writers of the 19th century. Though her life was full of drama, excitement and fame, for nearly a hundred years she’s been known only for the story of her death. Our guest, Dr. Anne Boyd Rioux, is changing that with her biography of Woolson, Portrait of a Lady Novelist. We join forces to help put this astonishingly brilliant writer “back in the canon.”

Anne Boyd Rioux’s new book Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters

Other than Miss Grief, Anne Boyd Rioux’s collection of some of Woolson’s short works, most of Woolson’s books are out of print. Digital versions of her work can be found at Project Gutenberg, and her short story “Miss Grief” and a few of her poems are available in audio at Librivox.

Anne Boyd RiouxThe author stands in front of an old garden wall wearing a white shirt and blue scarf. She has shoulder-length brown hair and glasses. She is smiling at the camera. is the author or editor of six books about nineteenth-century American women writers, including Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters, and Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist,  named one of the ten best books of the year by the Chicago Tribune. She is a professor of English at the University of New Orleans and the recipient of two National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships, one for public scholarship.

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