The Country of the Pointed Firs

by Sarah Orne Jewett, Mint Editions (Contribution by)

Overview

A writer travels to a fishing village to complete her book and becomes close friends with many residents including her popular housemate, Mrs. Almira Todd. Throughout her stay, the writer is inundated with personal stories from her colorful neighbors. In The Country of the Pointed Firs, a Boston native travels to a small Maine town called Dunnet Landing. She finds room and board with an older woman named Almira Todd, a widow and local herbalist. During her stay, the visitor develops a close friendship with Mrs. Todd. She also lends an ear to the many residents she encounters throughout the village. This book is full of personal anecdotes ranging from the exciting to the mundane. It’s a series of powerful sketches connected by a compelling voice and overarching narrative. Similar to Jewett’s other works, The Country of the Pointed Firs delivers a slice of New England life. The story is set in a fictional town, but populated by relatable yet unforgettable characters. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of The Country of the Pointed Firs is both modern and readable.

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781513207698
Publisher:	Mint Editions
Publication date:	08/10/2021
Series:	Mint Editions (Reading With Pride)
Pages:	108
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.31(d)

About the Author

Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909) was a prolific American author and poet from South Berwick, Maine. First published at the age of nineteen, Jewett started her career early, combining her love of nature with her literary talent. Known for vividly depicting coastal Maine settings, Jewett was a major figure in the American literary regionalism genre. Though she never married, Jewett lived and traveled with fellow writer Annie Adams Fields, who supported her in her literary endeavors.

Read an 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.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Sarah Orne Jewett: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text

The Country of the Pointed Firs
The Dunnet Landing Stories

• “The Queen’s Twin” (1899)
  “A Dunnet Shepherdess” (1899)
  “The Foreigner” (1900)
  “William’s Wedding” (1910)

Appendix A: Before The Country of the Pointed Firs:
Precursors and Influences

1. Sarah Orne Jewett, Preface to Deephaven (1893)
2. Sarah Orne Jewett, Chapter Five, “The Captains,” from Deephaven (1893)
3. Harriet Beecher Stowe, “Aunt Roxy and Aunt Ruey,” Chapter Four of The Pearl of Orr’s Island: A Story of the Coast of Maine (1862)

Appendix B: Local Color Literature: Nineteenth-Century Formulations and Definitions

1. William Dean Howells, “Editor’s Study” (1887)
2. Hamlin Garland, “Local Color in Art” (1894)
3. Bret Harte, “The Rise of the ‘Short Story’” (1899)

Appendix C: Selected Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett

1. To Annie Fields (June 1885)
2. From a letter to Annie Fields (12 October 1890)
3. From a letter to Annie Fields (1899 or 1890)
4. To Willa Sibert Cather (27 November 1908)
5. To Willa Sibert Cather (13 December 1908)

Appendix D: Reviews of The Country of the Pointed Firs

1. Overland Monthly (29 January 1897)
2. Atlantic Monthly (February 1897)
3. The Critic (13 February 1897)
4. The Nation (15 April 1897)
5. Alice Brown, Book Buyer (15 October 1897)

Appendix E: Profiles of Sarah Orne Jewett

1. Anonymous, “Miss Jewett” (January 1894)
2. Anonymous, “Pleasant Day With Miss Jewett” (August 1895)

Select Bibliography

Reading Group Guide

1. The Country of the Pointed Firs is not so much a novel as small episodes strung together. What do you think Jewett was trying to accomplish using this loose structure? What is she saying about New England country life?

2. Consider the narrator's view of the "quaint" village people in the beginning of the novel compared to her view as she leaves Dunnet Landing. How and when did her worldly view change of the small village and villagers?

3. Some critics argue Jewett was simply romanticizing the idealization of the simple life. However, take into account Mrs. Todd's herb gathering, Captain Littlepage's "quirks, " and the narrator's friendship with the inhabitants of Dunnet Landing. Do you feel the core of this novel is romantic, or humanistic and even religious?

4. The work heavily relies on four symbolic contrasts-the funeral, the sea, the outer islands, and the song sparrows. How do these four symbols work and contrast with each other? Are they relaying the theme of the novel, and if so, what exactly is that theme?

5. Consider Captain Littlepage's "spells, " William's inability to function in society, and Joanna's self-exile to Shell-heap Island. Is Jewett commenting on what small town life can do to a person's mind, or is she simply romanticizing life on the sea?

6. Consider the narrator's reaction to Mrs. Todd's tale of Joanna. Do you feel the narrator relates to Joanna, or is she just simply sympathetic to the shunted woman?

7. In Jewett's time, alternative medicine was vehemently looked down upon while many women such as midwives were persecuted for their practices. Yet, Mrs. Toddworks alongside the village doctor, and even prescribes pennyroyal (a known abortive). Is Jewett trying to give respectability to a dying practice, or is she satirizing a "country practice"?

8. The Country of the Pointed Firs is often branded as local-color literature. Do you feel Jewett was nostalgically writing about her beloved Maine, or was she trying to contrast New England with the rest of America and connect the "good old days" with the more fast-paced, industrial America growing around her?

9. In what ways does Jewett defy the prevailing nineteenth-century gender relations, namely the separation of women's and men's lives and women's sphere in the home and public? In what ways does she embrace those views?

Editorial Reviews

In this centenary year of the author’s death Broadview Press is to be commended for bringing forth an excellent new edition of Sarah Orne Jewett’s great work, The Country of the Pointed Firs. Considered by Willa Cather one of the American books guaranteed to endure, the text is here reproduced in its original integrity, after which are appended the sequel Dunnet Landing stories. Deborah Carlin’s exceptionally informative annotations to the text will greatly enrich readers’ appreciation and understanding. Also supplied is a useful selection of supplementary critical and historical material, including a rare, little-known, and very valuable 1895 interview with Jewett. The Country of the Pointed Firs is a distinguished addition to the impressive Broadview Editions series; I highly recommend it for classroom use, as well as for the general reader.” — Josephine Donovan, Professor Emerita of English, University of Maine

From the Publisher