SOURCE: "Exile, Depatriation and Constance Fenimore Woolson's Traveling Regionalism," in Women, America, and Movement: Narratives of Relocation, edited by Susan L. Roberson, University of Missouri Press, 1998, pp. 19-37.

In the following essay, Caccavari examines Woolson 's attempt at being a "writer in exile" and her simultaneous yearning for homecoming.

In a letter she wrote as a young girl to a friend who was about to be married and then live in Europe, Constance Fenimore Woolson touched on issues that would preoccupy her writing life throughout her adult-hood: exile, travel, place, freedom, art, patriarchy, and depatriation:

To Miss Flora Payne, afterwards, Mrs. William C. Whitney.

"Seems to me if I had a friend in exile across the ocean"—In exile! I wish I could be in "exile" too, if I could visit the most beautiful and famous places the world can show! You are the most fortunate young lady...