Oliver Wendell Holmes, Elsie Venner: A Romance of Destiny

Bryce Traister (University of British Columbia)

Ed. by Emory Elliott, University of California, Riverside
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.2: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Nineteenth Century, 1783-1900.
Vol. editors: J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1860 - 1861

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United States (Country of Origin)

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Novel

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At the heart of his 1861 novel

Elsie Venner: a Romance of Destiny

(a novel Oliver Wendell Holmes later called his “medicated novel”), lies an analogy between original sin and genetic inheritance. Poisoned

in utero

by rattlesnake venom, the novel’s eponymous heroine comes into the world a hybrid of snake and human. She coils, slithers, and strikes; her skin is cold, her eyes glittering diamonds, and her only friends are rattlesnakes. When she is given a basket of White Ash leaves, a tree long believed to be an antidote to rattlesnake venom, Elsie shrinks into herself “in a curdling terror.” Unable to love (or even cry), Elsie passes through the novel as the object of everyone’s repulsed and fascinated gaze (snakes are known, after all, for their ability to charm with horror).…

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1393 words

Citation: Traister, Bryce. "Elsie Venner: A Romance of Destiny". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 March 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5390, accessed 21 November 2024.]

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Elsie Venner: A Romance of Destiny

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