Alice Wilde: The Raftsman's Daughter. a Forest Romance

In a remote cabin by a forest creek, Alice Wilde waits for her father's return from the river, her days spent fishing and tending to simple rhythms of frontier life. When a charming city man named Philip Moore arrives unexpectedly, Alice finds herself caught between two worlds: the rugged, honest affection of Ben Perkins, the local woodsman who has loved her quietly for years, and the glittering possibility of a life beyond the trees. But it is a hidden trunk in the garret, filled with her deceased mother's belongings, that unlocks secrets threatening to reshape everything Alice believed about her family and herself. Metta Victoria Fuller Victor, writing in 1860, crafts a tender meditation on love, class, and the wilderness of the human heart. For readers who cherish the emotional interiority of Charlotte Brontë alongside the American frontier settings of Willa Cather, this is a forgotten romance that speaks to the eternal question of where we truly belong.