The story was published under the title "The Falling in Love of Fedora" in The Criterion, a local St. Louis magazine, on February 20, 1897.

[3] Toth hypothesized that the story may have been based on an admirer of Chopin's son, Jean, kissing her daughter, Lélia, and she noted similarities between Fedora and St. Louis journalist Florence Hayward.

On the ride back from the train station, Fedora kisses Miss Malthers, shocking the latter.

Biographer Barbara C. Ewell and scholar Joyce Dyer both view "Fedora" as a classical tale of sexual repression.

[7] Mariko Utsu, also writing in the Mississippi Quarterly, argues that the story could be interpreted as Fedora seeking to represent herself as a man, with her kissing of Miss Malthers following the "heteronormative script".