8 h 11 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 8 h 11 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What happens when a gift for drawing meets a city full of ambition, money, and competing dreams?
In The Coast of Bohemia, William Dean Howells follows a young woman from a quiet Ohio town to New York, where she hopes to study art. Her talent draws notice at home. In the city, studios, classes, teachers, and rival pupils open a larger world, with new lessons and temptations.
A love story runs through her pursuit of beauty, raising the question of how a woman can live as an artist when marriage and a creative career seem to compete. Howells watches this world with humor and kindness. Money, family, and manners matter here, alongside the young people's hopes for their work.
What you’ll discover
- A talent taking shape Follow a young woman's gift for drawing beyond the Ohio community that first notices it.
- Inside the art world Enter New York's studios and classrooms, among teachers, wealthy patrons, and ambitious young artists.
- Love beside ambition Explore the pull between a creative career and the expectations surrounding a woman's marriage.
- Ordinary lives closely observed Enjoy Howells's kind, humorous attention to the ways talent meets money, family, and manners.
- A country without a map Discover an artists' world whose impossible coastline hints at the distance between dreams and life.
Who will love it
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’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Beauty can narrow a painter's sight
- A warning wounds a young artist
- Cornelia chooses a career of her own
- Friendship gives ambition a home
- Art should answer to ordinary people
- The past unsettles Cornelia's new life
- A portrait reveals the painter's feelings
- Work and love both ask for honesty
Who’s who
- Cornelia SaundersA gifted, proud young woman from Pymantoning who goes to New York to study art and carries a secret from her girlhood.
- Walter LudlowAn earnest impressionist painter who believes art should give something back to ordinary people and keeps misjudging the girl he admires.
- Charmian MayboughA rich, romantic fellow student with a Sphinx profile who wants to live a perfect Bohemian life and adores Cornelia.
- Mrs. SaundersCornelia's easygoing mother, a dressmaker who smiles through everything, talks too freely and loves her daughter deeply.
- Mrs. BurtonA warm, spirited friend from Pymantoning who believes in Cornelia's talent and quietly watches over her.
- WetmoreA witty, shrewd painter and Ludlow's friend, who teases Charmian's Bohemia and sees more than he says.
- Mrs. WestleyA kind New York hostess who befriends Cornelia and offers Ludlow gentle, sensible advice.
- DickersonA cheerful, brazen traveling salesman of art goods who reappears from Cornelia's past and wants her attention.
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- Large print hardcover
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The Coast of Bohemia
by William Dean Howells · 1893
A village girl with a gift for drawing spends her savings on New York art school and meets a painter.
Medium level2–5 hours to read16 languages
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In short
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.
The Coast of Bohemia at a glance
- 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
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
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.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1893
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 5 h 20 min
- Level
- Medium level
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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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.
The author
William Dean Howells
1837–1920 · American novelist and literary critic
William Dean Howells (1837–1920) was an American novelist, critic, and playwright. He was born in Ohio and lived in Massachusetts and New York. He edited The Atlantic Monthly from 1871 to 1881. His novels include The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885) and The Coast of Bohemia (1893).
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