Retrieve Anne - The Original Classic Edition Author Constance Fenimore Woolson Version

download available at sitelinkProject Gutenberg, This book caught my attention because the protagonist, Anne Douglas, grew up on Mackinac Island, The story began on the island in around, and it was fascinating to read what life on the island then was like.
Once Anne left the island the plot took some very wild turns there were proposals and murder and betrayal one scene was a literal cliffhanger but I didn't enjoy it quite as much.
I would have preferred if Anne had married a different suitor than she did, but overall, quite an entertaining read.
Ansoap opera! We have orphans, unrequited love, war, heroism, love triangles emphasis on the plural, grumpy old ladies, murder, pseudonyms, and deception in love.
Not to mention a harpist randomly showing up in the woods with his monkey,

I would have liked this book better if Anne had married the right guy in the end.
I didn't particularly like any of the candidates, but especially detested the one she ended up with,

I read this book because part of it takes place on Mackinac Island, which I have been fortunate enough to visit a few times.
I loved learning more of the island's history, and especially getting an idea of what life must have been like there before it became a wellkept, crowded tourist destination.
Finally available, a high quality book of the original classic edition of Anne, This is a new and freshly published edition of this culturally important work by Constance Fenimore Woolson, which is now, at last, again available to you.


Enjoy this classic work today, These selected paragraphs distill the contents and give you a quick look inside Anne:

The rough walls and beams of the chapel were decorated with fine spraylike lines of evergreen, all pointing toward the chancel there was not a solid spot upon which the eye could rest, no upright branches in the corners, no massed bunches over the windows, no of Bethlehem, anchors, or nondescript Greek letters the whole chapel was simply outlined in light feathery lines of green, which reached the chancel, entered it, played about its walls, and finally came together under the one massive wreath whose even circle and thick foliage held them all firmly in place, and ended their wanderings in a restful quiet strength.


They followed her, hopping along together, with arms interlinked, while her candle shed a light on the bare walls and floors of the rooms through which they passed, a series of little apartments, empty and desolate, at the end of which was the kitchen, inhabited in the daytime by an Irishwoman, a soldiers wife, who came in the morning before breakfast, and went home at dusk, the only servant William Douglass fastthinning purse could afford.


Superseded, he then attended nominally to the highways but as the military authorities had for years done all that was to be done on the smooth roads, three in number, including the steep fort hill, the position was a sinecure, and the superintendent took long walks across the island, studying the flora of the Northern woods, watching the birds, noticing the clouds and the winds, staying out late to experiment with the flash of the two lighthouses from their different distances, and then coming home to his lonely house, where the baby Anne was tenderly cared for by Miss Lois Hinsdale, who superintended the nurse all day, watched her charge to bed, and then came over early in the morning before she woke.


But what was not expected was the presence there of Miss Lois Hinsdale, sitting severely rigid in the first pew, accompanied by the doctors childa healthy, blueeyed little girl, who kissed her new mamma obediently, and thought her very sweet and prettya belief which remained with her always, the careless, indolent, easytempered, beautiful young second wife having died when her stepdaughter was eleven years old, leaving four little ones, who, according to a common freak of nature, were more Indian than their mother.


By the careful attention of Anne he was present in the fort chapel every Sunday morning, and, once there, he played the organ with delight, and brought exquisite harmonies from its little pipes but Anne stood there beside him all the time, found the places, and kept him down to the work, borrowing his watch beforehand in order to touch him when the voluntary was too long, or the chords between the hymn verses too beautiful and intricate.
Anne is set on Mackinac island, This where Constance Fennimore Woolson had summered with her family, It is about a little girl growing up on Mackinac Island, Struggling with self fulfillment. it has a good amount of detail of the island culture, pays particular attention to the French settlers and those who derived a mix of First Nations and French, The island has dedicated a spot, overlooking Marquette Park to her, Anne's Tablet, nice quiet spot, It was, and still is my thinking spot, Anne moves through several recognizable genres: something like local color, a society novel, a romance, and finally detective fiction.
I wouldn't personally call it a picaresque, just because it spends quite a bit of time stationary in each of these genres and their respective locations.
The openingpages are really quite excellent: there are some incredibly rich descriptive passages as well as some really interesting discussion of what it means to be local and what it means to be American.
I found the rest less interesting despite the intrusion of the Civil War at the/rds mark, This is partly because the novel becomes much more solely focused on a romance plot, which snuffs out the greater variety in theme and style of the earlier section it's also partly because, frankly, Anne's romantic interest is uninteresting and unconvincing.
Perhaps I should give more to apage book that I managed to finish, but it's not a book I could really recommend.
The first section provides an interesting look at life on Mackinac island in the midth century, though it's marred by racist attitudes, in particular towards Native Americans.
The story dragged for me when Anne first went to New York City, and I almost gave up, But then it turns into a melodramatic soap opera that amused me enough to keep me turning pages, All of the other characters' choices revolve around creating tension and then resolution for Anne, who is virtuous to a fault.
Her stubbornness is the only relief to her blandness, This is my third time reading Anne, a novel that first attracted me to Constance Fenimore Woolson about whom I have written a biography.
This time, I got to read it with a class of graduate students, What a thrill that has been, One of them spontaneously wrote to me this morning, "Anne was full of intrigue, suspense and it had a neat ending.
It was a fabulous read!!" It has been heartening to see how much they have enjoyed it, Many of them said at our last class that they had already finished it although it's not due yet because they couldn't put it down.


Anne was a bestseller in its day, It was such a huge success when it ran in Harper's magazine inthat people were speculating in the newspapers about how it would end and the Harpers sent Woolson a thousanddollar bonus huge money in those days! and an exclusive contract.
It's easy to see why readers loved it so muchit is an epic love story, a murder mystery, and a comingofage novel all rolled into one.
My students said they wished they had had it to read along with the Bronte sisters and Jane Austen when they were growing up.
I feel the same way,

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The heroine, Anne, belongs in the pantheon of iconoclastic heroines, She doesn't set out to subvert usually male authority, but she does it over and over again, Woolson has written a heroine who goes against type she is described by everyone as "big" and exercises vigorously and who must time and again follow her own feelings over what others think is proper.
She is also a good

girl who falls in love with the bad boy, Many years later, about one of her other books, a reader wrote to the New York Times that "Miss Woolson knows how what kind of men women like.
" Judging by my students' reactions, I think she was right! On the whole, I enjoyed this book, It's an American romance, the author provides charming backstories for various secondary characters, the heroine is intelligent and caring.
I'll probably reread it sometime,

A couple issues, One is the casual racism which is pretty normal, I suppose, for the era, but in a couple of places becomes offensive enough to put me off the story.
I won't describe it, it's too depressing,

The other issue is that about/of the way through the book, it switches from romance to detective novel.
I found the switch jarring and the pacing of the mystery was off, I didn't totally dig the ending, but maybe on a reread the mystery and the ending wouldn't bother me so much since I'd know what to expect.
.