Novels and Stories: Deephaven / A Country Doctor / The Country of the Pointed Firs / Dunnet Landing Stories / Selected Stories and Sketches

by Sarah Orne Jewett, Michael Davitt Bell (Editor)

In her nuanced and sharply etched novels and short stories, Sarah Orne Jewett captured the innerlife and hidden emotional drama of outwardly quiet New England coastal towns. Set against the background of long Maine winters, hardscrabble farms, and the sea, her stories of independent, capable women struggling to find fulfillment in their lives and work have a surprisingly modern resonance. Here is the first collection to include all her best fiction, and it reveals the full stature of the writer Willa Cather ranked with Mark Twain, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Jewett struck her characteristic note in her first collection, Deephaven (1877), stories whose exploration of Maine life moved and delighted readers when they were first published in the Atlantic Monthly, and opened a new vein of regional fiction in American literature. Of the distinctly local quality of her writings Willa Cather later said: "The language her people speak to each other is a native tongue. No writer can invent it. It is made in the hard school of experience, in communities where language has been undisturbed long enough to take on color and character from the nature and experiences of the people." The novel A Country Doctor (1884), inspired by both her own life and that of her doctor father, is often read as a veiled autobiography. Her focus here is on a woman who must choose between marriage and her commitment to a medical career, a decision she defends passionately against the narrowness of those around her: "God would not give us the same talents if what were right for men were wrong for women." Jewett's masterpiece, The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896), brings to imaginative life the faded trading port of Dunnet Landing, Maine, re-creating in spare, impressionistic prose the rhythms and textures of a communal society of poor fishermen and farmers, with its traditional country rituals and its stoically endured tragedies. In these linked stories we meet some of Jewett's most unforgettable c

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Short Stories, Novels, American, Literature, Collections

950 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 1994

About the author

Sarah Orne Jewett was an American novelist and short story writer, best known for her local color works set in or near South Berwick, Maine, on the border of New Hampshire, which in her day was a declining New England seaport.

Reviews

[Sharon Barrow Wilfong · Rating 5 out of 5]

I must admit it took me awhile to catch on to Jewett's style. There are pretty much no plot lines. Every story is a slice of life in New England from rich to poor. But her insight into the foibles and virtues of human nature are spot on.

She captures late 19th, early 20th century New England as beautifully as a landscape artist. I am not a visual person, but her colloquial dialect and brief, yet deft descriptions of the country, ocean, houses, dress and people are as clear in my mind as Grandma Moses' folk paintings.

If I had to choose a word to describe this collection it would be "delightful."

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Country of the Pointed Firs and the accompanying Dunnet Landing stories filled my mind with a perfect quiet on a cold winter weekend. Jewett's characterization of Mrs. Almira Todd and her mother, Mrs. Blackett, and her brother, William, reveal her skill in presenting kind, compassionate portraits of human life and love in a provincial town on the coast of Maine at the turn of the century. The question about whether Country is a novel or a series of connected sketches is an interesting one, as this is certainly not an event- or action-driven book. Country coheres around characters, a wonderfully observant character narrator, and the setting of Dunnet Landing, Maine.

Bill Brown's essay on objects in The Country of the Pointed Firs, later collected in his A Sense of Things: The Object Matter of American Literature , helped me read Jewett's work more coherently. I plan to read more of Brown's scholarship after being dazzled by this essay. I recommend it as a powerful companion to the book.

[Richard Subber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Never heard of Sarah Orne Jewett? Give her prose a try.
This collection of course includes “The Country of the Pointed Firs,” Jewett’s first-rate short novel. You’ll also find “Deephaven,” the Dunnet Landing stories, and others.
“Pointed Firs” is an 1896 novel that describes some of the people and places of coastal Maine, and tells their stories with comfortable familiarity, reflective insight, and respectful love.
Can an old fisherman’s consuming memories of his departed wife bring tears to your eyes? Read the story and find out.
Read more of my book reviews and poems here:
www.richardsubber.com

[Kerry Swanson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Country of the Pointed Firs is probably the most beautiful prose portrayal of a New England life long lost. Beautiful in every way and not a word wasted.

Jewett was far ahead of her time with A Country Doctor. Inspiring for anyone confronted by the conflict between heart and head.

[Eileen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read "The Country of the Pointed Firs" and it was lovely and completely atmospheric. Little vignettes from the coast of Maine in the late 1800s.

"I view it, in addition, that a community narrows down and grows dreadful ignorant when it is shut up to its own affairs, and gets no knowledge of the outside world except from a cheap, unprincipled newspaper."

Seems relevant to today, too.

"The early morning breeze was still blowing, and the warm, sunshiny air was of some ethereal northern sort, with a cool freshness as if it came over new fallen snow. The world was filled with a fragrance of fir-balsam and the faintest flavor of seaweed from the ledges....It was so still and so early that the village was but half awake. I could hear no voices but those of the birds, small and great.."

"There was something shining in the air, and a kind of lustre on the water and the pasture grass, -- a northern look that, except at the moment of the year, one must go far to seek. The sunshineof a northern summer was coming to its lovely end."

Sound like a wonderful place to escape to.

[Russel Henderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the great American authors of place. My grandparents, particularly my grandmother, are of New England stock, and in her stories I cannot but see my grandmother’s forebears in her pages. I’ve addressed her novels separately, but her short stories have the remarkable faculty for calling to life people and hamlets in just a few short sentences. There are motifs, to be sure, but her characters are singular and lively. Though she wrote during The Gilded Age, there is little talk of industry or greed in her pages. Rather she writes of the towns left behind by the striving, of the small joys and petty grievances of their aging populations.

[Nina Hudelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently read The Country of the Pointed Firs for a second time. I enjoyed the author’s snapshots of quaint life in a fishing village and in-depth descriptions of characters who reside there. Many strong women. No plot, but snippets of beauty everywhere.

[Cathy Houston · Rating 5 out of 5]

country of the pointed firs is still my favorite but it was interesting to read her other works

[Jeanne Grunert · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Sarah Orne Jewett's works. "The Country Doctor" is an excellent novel, and her sketches of local life are excellent too. Worth a read.

[Matt Kelland · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. I think I'd prefer it as an audiobook.

[Nicole Northrup · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely stories about Maine. Touching, humorous and very real characters. Excellent portraits of the people and of the state the mid-late 1800s.

[Shawn Thrasher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Please note that I'm reading this book in fits and starts - not because I don't like it, but because I want to savor it. I was hesitant about the book at first, but Deephaven was a delightful start - short, sweet, romantic, sometimes painfully sad, beautiful, vivid. Although never specifically written, it's obvious that Helen and Kate are at the very least deeply in love, and at the most a committed couple; there are many beautiful passages about them exploring, talking, laughing, listening, or just sitting together in front a fire or along the sea. The fact that they both have chosen their stars - and have shared that fact with each other - is wonderful in all senses. I can't recommend Deephaven enough. I'm exciting to read more.

*****

I didn't enjoy The Country of the Pointed Firs nearly as much as I did Deephaven, even though critics from old until now have called this Jewett's best work. The entire book is really a series of sketches or short stories, written as conversation or gossip between various people in a small Maine town called Dunnett Landing. The very best tales are the gothic, hauntingly beautiful story of Joanna, a scorned woman who becomes in a hermit on an island off the coast. Another more enjoyable sketch is that of the Bowden family reunion, where I half expected Pa Ingalls to make a cameo appearance (he did not).

[Starry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven't finished reading this collection of Sarah Orne Jewett's novels and stories, but I have already gained a deep respect for the author. I might even grow to naming her among my favorite authors.
Reasons:
1. She clearly loves nature, particularly the landscape of Maine. Her descriptions of the fields and forests and shore are evocative and beautiful. Her most well-known short story "The White Heron" suggests Jewett was an early conservationist.
2. Her short stories describe strong women with social consciences -- more vignettes from their lives than action-filled plots. You get a social commentary and a feel for life in rural Maine in the late 1800s. (Side note: interesting to see how New England society cared for their poor in the absence of welfare and nursing homes; people felt a strong obligation to care for neighbors, but it seems the town government [selectmen] were made aware of cases and stepped in when needed with stipends/funding/oversight)

Some stories border on insipid sweetness (like O. Henry), but I much prefer that to the cynicism or shock-value of more modern short stories.

Favorite story so far: A Winter Courtship -- not just good characterization but clever and funny.

[Sonja · Rating 2 out of 5]

Been reading the stories in this off and on for a while now. When I first started reading "The Country of the Pointed Firs" the first time I was bored by it and I don't think I finished it. I reread and finished it recently and I enjoyed it this time. Maybe needing something soothing to read on the commuter rail made the difference. You'll most likely either find it boring or serene and enjoyable.

Still haven't managed to finish the stories in this. I don't think I'm a big fan of short stories. These ones got a bit too pokey for me to manage to read the rest of them. Maybe someday...

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

A surprising delight. Critics have compared her to Twain, and although they were contemporaries, the similarity largely ends at each one's adept use of regional language. Twain's dialects covered the Mississippi River towns and Jewett's the coastal region of northern New England. Main characters were largely feminine and small town, and her humor is very subtle. She wrote of her personal experience growing up in that environment, but largely placed her subjects and towns in a fictional context.

[Countess of Frogmere · Rating 5 out of 5]

"When one really knows a village like this and its surrounding, 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."

Quiet novella about the lives of Maine folk in a decaying fishing village. This is a rare little gem of a book, full of profoundly spiritual ideas.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is really a review of "Deephaven," but I do have this whole collection. A fascinating little book that could be a meditation on female friendship... or more? Finding a home of one's own. Listening to the people around you, finding happiness where you are. I need to reread it. I can't say enough about SOJ.

[Katherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I moved to New England for grad school and this book was given to me as a "welcome to New England" gift. With that in mind, I cannot fully endorse this book although I think Sarah Orne Jewett is a fine writer. I liked it well enough, just didn't love it.

[Christi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been reading this book for 13 years the way superstitious Christians read the Bible... in fits and starts, in frequent binges, in moments seeking clarity and in time stolen from other tasks. If I was heading for a deserted desert island, this is the book that would be in a waterproof baggie.

[Densie]

really loved it

[Mary Jane]

One of my favorite books.. I have this edition and it has a good selection

[Ellen Locker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I felt like I was living in Maine as I read Country of Pointed Firs. Deephaven and A Country Doctor were also very good. Makes me wish I could go back in time.

[Karin Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Country Doctor, a novel included in this collection, is one of my all-time favorite books.