Summary
Summary of The Coast of Bohemia
The Coast of Bohemia at a glance
Summary: 8 min to read
- Reading time
- About 4 h 40 min3 h 45 min fast, 5 h 35 min slow
- Length
- 66,900 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1893by William Dean Howells
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
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Key ideas
Key idea 1
Beauty can narrow a painter's sight
At the Pymantoning County fair, Ludlow sees a painting in the dust, bright parasols and racing crowd. Trained in France, he believes that color can reveal the joy in ordinary American life. Then he enters the Fine Arts Department and recoils at its decorated household objects.
His disgust exposes a gap in his thinking. He wants to paint ordinary people, yet doubts their worth when their taste offends him. His love of beauty does not mean he understands the people around him.
Key idea 2
A warning wounds a young artist
Cornelia Saunders is tearing up her drawings after losing a prize when Ludlow notices her talent.
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Key idea 3
Cornelia chooses a career of her own
After a brief romance, an unhappy teaching term and typhoid fever, Cornelia returns to drawing.
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Key idea 4
Friendship gives ambition a home
At the Synthesis of Art Studies, Cornelia chooses the instructor she hears is the severest and begins by drawing a plaster hand.
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Key idea 5
Art should answer to ordinary people
Ludlow asks Cornelia to judge his fair painting from the Pymantoning point of view.
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Key idea 6
The past unsettles Cornelia's new life
Called downstairs to meet a gentleman, Cornelia expects Ludlow.
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Key idea 7
A portrait reveals the painter's feelings
Commissioned to paint Charmian, Ludlow doubts that he can capture her.
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Key idea 8
Work and love both ask for honesty
Cornelia's journey from an Ohio village fair to the art schools of New York brings ambition, friendship and secrecy into the same life.
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Who it’s for
You will love this book if you enjoy warm, witty novels about young people finding their calling, or if you like a spirited heroine and a loyal, absurd friend.
What this book is
What happens when a fifteen-year-old girl tears up her drawings at a county fair, and a young painter warns her mother that the artist's road is cruel? In The Coast of Bohemia, that small scene sets a whole life moving. Cornelia Saunders, a dressmaker's daughter from Pymantoning, Ohio, will one day take her savings to the art schools of New York.
William Dean Howells, the novelist and magazine editor, wrote this light and honest picture of American life. His title jokes on Shakespeare's sea coast for a land with no sea. You get comedy and feeling, and a close look at boarding houses and studios.
In this summary
- 1Beauty can narrow a painter's sightFree
- 2A warning wounds a young artist
- 3Cornelia chooses a career of her own
- 4Friendship gives ambition a home
- 5Art should answer to ordinary people
- 6The past unsettles Cornelia's new life
- 7A portrait reveals the painter's feelings
- 8Work and love both ask for honesty
A painter sees beauty at a county fair
The novel opens at the Pymantoning County fair. The trotting races are under way, and the crowd packs the rail. Among them sits Ludlow, a painter of twenty-two who sees purples, indigo blues and scarlets in the dust and the bright parasols. He is sure he can paint this scene with the methods of the French impressionists.
He studied in France, and he believes in prismatic color as others believe in the Ten Commandments. He also feels a duty to show Americans the joyful side of their daily life.
Then he walks into the Fine Arts Department, which holds crazy quilts, painted tambourines and gilt rolling pins. The ugliness hurts him like a blasphemy. He wonders whether people who make such things can be fit subjects for art at all. Howells treats him with gentle fun, yet his question runs through the whole book. A man can love beauty and still misjudge the people nearest him.
That’s 1 of 8 key points.
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Check yourself
What kind of artistic success does Cornelia want?
Right. “She wants to succeed as a man does, not as a great woman painter.”Not quite. “She wants to succeed as a man does, not as a great woman painter.”
What responsibility does Ludlow believe an artist has toward common life?
Right. “An artist who takes from the common life ought to give something back.”Not quite. “An artist who takes from the common life ought to give something back.”
What happens as Cornelia keeps silent about Dickerson?
Right. “Cornelia's silence about Dickerson grows from a small embarrassment into a wall.”Not quite. “Cornelia's silence about Dickerson grows from a small embarrassment into a wall.”
Go deeper: the whole of The Coast of Bohemia
About 4 h 50 min to read.Start freePaperback, hardcover and large print, printed for you at cost, are on their way.Email me when it is printed
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 66,900 words
- Reading timeAbout 4 h 40 min
Questions about The Coast of Bohemia
What is The Coast of Bohemia about?
It follows Cornelia Saunders, a village girl with a gift for drawing, who leaves Pymantoning, Ohio, to study at a New York art school. There she meets the painter Ludlow and her devoted friend Charmian, and tries to guard a private secret.
Who is Charmian Maybough?
Charmian is a wealthy, romantic fellow student at the Synthesis of Art Studies. She dreams of a perfectly Bohemian life, adores Cornelia, and turns every moment into theater, which gives the book much of its comedy and warmth.
What does the title The Coast of Bohemia mean?
Bohemia was the traditional name for an artist's world of freedom and poverty. Howells has said he stays on its pleasant coast and does not explore the shadier inland, so the book shows a gentle, clean version of student life.
What is the Synthesis of Art Studies?
It is the novel's imagined New York art school, run by students and leading artists, with a strict course that begins with drawing plaster casts. Howells built it from visits to real art schools and the stories of their students.
Is The Coast of Bohemia easy to read?
Much of it is lively conversation, with short scenes, quick jokes and vivid characters. The plain, clear style and the humor make the story easy to follow and pleasant to hear aloud, from the county fair onward.
Cite this edition
Howells, William Dean. The Coast of Bohemia. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-coast-of-bohemia.
Howells, W. D. (2026). The coast of Bohemia. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-coast-of-bohemia (Original work published 1893)
Howells, William Dean. The Coast of Bohemia. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-coast-of-bohemia.
@book{howells2026coast,
author = {Howells, William Dean},
title = {The Coast of Bohemia},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-coast-of-bohemia},
note = {First published 1893}
}
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