It’s the birthday of Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909), known for her stories set on the coast of Maine, and in particular for one slim novel—really more a series of loosely connected stories or sketches— The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896), which Henry James himself famously called a “beautiful little quantum of achievement.”

Jewett was born and raised in South Berwick, Maine. Her father was a doctor, and she often went with him on his rounds to the local farmers and fishermen and also soaked up loads of local color on long walks. She attended the Berwick Academy in town but considered herself largely self-educated. She began publishing stories at 19 and published her first book, Deephaven, a collection of sketches about a fictional New England town, in 1877. She wrote many more collections of stories and several novels, including A Country Doctor (1884), which drew on her relationship with her father; but she was always known more for her fine portrayals of regional characters and of country life than for plot.

Jewett had rheumatoid arthritis from childhood. She was single her whole life, entertained an early ambition to be a doctor herself, and became an important influence on several other writers, including Willa Cather. Jewett in fact advised Cather on seeking quiet and trusting her own background in other to develop her writing, and Cather later dedicated O Pioneers! thus: TO THE MEMORY OF SARAH ORNE JEWETT IN WHOSE BEAUTIFUL AND DELICATE WORK THERE IS THE PERFECTION THAT ENDURES. (Willa Cather *and* Henry James: beat that.)

Jewett was close friends with a literary couple, the writer Annie Adams Fields and James Thomas Fields, who published and edited the Atlantic Monthly. Upon James’ death, Annie and Jewett lived together, traveling and hosting other literary figures. In 1902, Jewett was in a carriage accident that ended her career. She died in 1909 back in her South Berwick home after suffering a couple of strokes.

NB: I picked up The Country of the Pointed Firs and put it down several times over a number of months before getting into it, but I’m finally into it. It’s worth it. Jewett’s descriptions truly fill the senses. Here’s a sample from early on, in which the narrator is talking about her landlady, who raises and gathers herbs: “I do not know what herb of the night it was that used sometimes to send out a penetrating odor late in the evening, after the dew had fallen, and the moon was high, and the cool air came up from the sea. Then Mrs. Todd would feel that she must talk to somebody, and I was only too glad to listen. We both fell under the spell, and she either stood outside the window, or made an errand to my sitting-room, and told, it might be very commonplace news of the day, or, as happened one misty summer night, all that lay deepest in her heart…”

 

Have a fine Monday, with every sense alive to the riches around you, and stay scrupulously honest to the data.