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The Country of the Pointed Firs and Other Stories

Author Sarah Orne Jewett
Ebook
Random House Group | Modern Library
On sale Nov 01, 2000 | 304 Pages | 9780679641599
Grades 9-12 + AP/IB
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Sarah Orne Jewett's The Country of the Pointed Firs was published in 1896, and it quickly garnered a reputation for its truthfulness and the quality of its writing. Rudyard Kipling described it as 'immense--it is the very life,' and Henry James praised it for being 'absolutely true--not a word overdone--such elegance and exactness.'

The Country of the Pointed Firs, is a concisely written and beautifully wrought episodic novel of a young woman writer's summer sojourn in the Maine fishing village of Dunnet Landing. Through Jewett, the young woman conveys the effect of her deepening connections to the people of Dunnet Landing, especially the sibylline Mrs. Todd, and her empathy with the mysteries of the coastal life, one where the land and the sea have equal influence.

This Modern Library edition includes additional Dunnet Landing stories that were published between 1896 and 1910.
Sarah Orne Jewett (1849–1909) was a novelist, short story writer, and poet. As a young child she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and was encouraged to take frequent walks, falling in love with nature as a result. At nineteen, Jewett had a short story published in The Atlantic; her reputation grew with the publication of her novels A Country Doctor and The Country of the Pointed Firs. For most of her adult life, Jewett lived with her close friend, Annie Adams Field, in what was then termed a “Boston marriage.” Jewett died in 1909. View titles by Sarah Orne Jewett
Preface by Willa Cather

The Country of the Pointed Firs

The White Heron

The Flight of Betsey Lane

The Dulham Ladies

Going to Shrewsbury

The Only Rose

Miss Tempy’s Watchers

Martha’s Lady

The Guests of Mrs. Timms

The Town Poor

The Hiltons’ Holiday

Aunt Cynthy Dallett
There was something about the coast town of Dunnet which made it seem more attractive than other maritime villages of eastern Maine. Perhaps it was the simple fact of acquaintance with that neighborhood which made it so attaching, and gave such interest to the rocky shore and dark woods, and the few houses which seemed to be securely wedged and tree-nailed in among the ledges by the Landing. These houses made the most of their seaward view, and there was a gayety and determined floweriness in their bits of garden ground; the small-paned high windows in the peaks of their steep gables were like knowing eyes that watched the harbor and the far sea-line beyond, or looked northward all along the shore and its background of spruces and balsam firs. When one really knows a village like this and its surroundings, it is like becoming acquainted with a single person. The process of falling in love at first sight is as final as it is swift in such a case, but the growth of true friendship may be a lifelong affair.

After a first brief visit made two or three summers before in the course of a yachting cruise, a lover of Dunnet Landing returned to find the unchanged shores of the pointed firs, the same quaintness of the village with its elaborate conventionalities; all that mixture of remoteness, and childish certainty of being the centre of civilization of which her affectionate dreams had told. One evening in June, a single passenger landed upon the steamboat wharf. The tide was high, there was a fine crowd of spectators, and the younger portion of the company followed her with subdued excitement up the narrow street of the salt-aired, white-clapboarded little town.
. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
"Immense—it is the very life."
—Rudyard Kipling

About

Sarah Orne Jewett's The Country of the Pointed Firs was published in 1896, and it quickly garnered a reputation for its truthfulness and the quality of its writing. Rudyard Kipling described it as 'immense--it is the very life,' and Henry James praised it for being 'absolutely true--not a word overdone--such elegance and exactness.'

The Country of the Pointed Firs, is a concisely written and beautifully wrought episodic novel of a young woman writer's summer sojourn in the Maine fishing village of Dunnet Landing. Through Jewett, the young woman conveys the effect of her deepening connections to the people of Dunnet Landing, especially the sibylline Mrs. Todd, and her empathy with the mysteries of the coastal life, one where the land and the sea have equal influence.

This Modern Library edition includes additional Dunnet Landing stories that were published between 1896 and 1910.

Author

Sarah Orne Jewett (1849–1909) was a novelist, short story writer, and poet. As a young child she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and was encouraged to take frequent walks, falling in love with nature as a result. At nineteen, Jewett had a short story published in The Atlantic; her reputation grew with the publication of her novels A Country Doctor and The Country of the Pointed Firs. For most of her adult life, Jewett lived with her close friend, Annie Adams Field, in what was then termed a “Boston marriage.” Jewett died in 1909. View titles by Sarah Orne Jewett

Table of Contents

Preface by Willa Cather

The Country of the Pointed Firs

The White Heron

The Flight of Betsey Lane

The Dulham Ladies

Going to Shrewsbury

The Only Rose

Miss Tempy’s Watchers

Martha’s Lady

The Guests of Mrs. Timms

The Town Poor

The Hiltons’ Holiday

Aunt Cynthy Dallett

Excerpt

There was something about the coast town of Dunnet which made it seem more attractive than other maritime villages of eastern Maine. Perhaps it was the simple fact of acquaintance with that neighborhood which made it so attaching, and gave such interest to the rocky shore and dark woods, and the few houses which seemed to be securely wedged and tree-nailed in among the ledges by the Landing. These houses made the most of their seaward view, and there was a gayety and determined floweriness in their bits of garden ground; the small-paned high windows in the peaks of their steep gables were like knowing eyes that watched the harbor and the far sea-line beyond, or looked northward all along the shore and its background of spruces and balsam firs. When one really knows a village like this and its surroundings, it is like becoming acquainted with a single person. The process of falling in love at first sight is as final as it is swift in such a case, but the growth of true friendship may be a lifelong affair.

After a first brief visit made two or three summers before in the course of a yachting cruise, a lover of Dunnet Landing returned to find the unchanged shores of the pointed firs, the same quaintness of the village with its elaborate conventionalities; all that mixture of remoteness, and childish certainty of being the centre of civilization of which her affectionate dreams had told. One evening in June, a single passenger landed upon the steamboat wharf. The tide was high, there was a fine crowd of spectators, and the younger portion of the company followed her with subdued excitement up the narrow street of the salt-aired, white-clapboarded little town.
. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Praise

"Immense—it is the very life."
—Rudyard Kipling

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