What a find; I’m having a smoking good time this week reading these stories! I discovered The Online Archive of Nineteenth Century Women’s Writing after Choral Director Dennis Brown mentioned Harriet Prescott Spofford at the Pine Cone Singers Spring Concert in Groveland, CA. Her short story sparked poems and songs—there’s something to aspire to, my writer friends!

•  “Circumstance”, by Harriet Spofford

In this gruesome tale with dense and tangled forests of long and twisted prepositional phrases, a poor wife holds the mother of all monsters in thrall by singing to him. “Circumstance” could serve as the libretto for an opera written by a mad musician on meth.  What were these nineteenth century ladies smoking?

• “Indulgence”, by Susan Perabo, One Story

A mother and daughter indulge in an abandoned smoking habit that had me choking. At the end of the story I was choked up for a different reason. An effective story well-told, Perabo employs a literary device you might want to try. Think of a life event that did not turn out the way you wished it had. Rewrite it. 

• “The Angel Over the Right Shoulder”, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

Stories about  issues written in dated language can be refreshing. A nineteenth century woman struggles to carve out time for herself while performing her household duties. Can we identify with a woman who is serving her “liege lord” (said tongue-in-cheek)? We can, because relationships change but the challenges remain the same.

She soon found, however, that she could not fix attention upon any intellectual pursuit.

And she has no one to blame but herself.

• “A Wagner Matinee”, by Willa Cather, www.readbookonline.net

In descriptive phrases,Cather puts a hardscrabble country life in sharp relief against the rich cultural resources the city has to offer. A city boy fondly recalls his country escapades, while his aged aunt yearns for the cultural experiences she has missed.

“The Quadroons”, by Lydia Maria Child

• I first heard about issue-driven fiction at a writer’s conference in Arizona from Stella Pope Duarte who wrote “If I Die in Juarez.”  How surprising to find this compelling story written in 1842. Activist Child says in a footnote:

The world does not afford such materials for tragic romance as the history of the Quadroons.

• “Bridging the Years”, by Kathleen Thompson Norris, Amazon.com

Domesticity was a popular theme in the nineteenth century. Anne is shaken out of her “little indefinable mood of depression” and lifted to a place of gratitude by a stranger, whose own days of domestic bliss are now hindsight.

• “The Other Two”, by Edith Wharton, 50 Great Short Stories Edited by Milton Crane

A cheeky tale of domesticity, Mr. Waythorn comes to view his thrice-married wife in a different light when he realizes  her ability to put him at ease is grounded in much experience; his blushing bride is a well worn shoe.