Sarah Orne Jewett: A Writer's Life

Woodstock, New York: The Overlook Press, 1993. O6 - A first edition (First published 1993 stated) hardcover book SIGNED by author on the title page in very good condition in very good dust jacket that i mylar protected. Dust jacke has price clipped, dust jacket and book have tanning and light shelf wear. 9.5"x6.25", 238 pages. Satisfaction Guaranteed. Theodora Sarah Orne Jewett was an American novelist, short story writer and poet, best known for her local color works set along or near the southern seacoast of Maine. Jewett is recognized as an important practitioner of American literary regionalism. In 1868 at age 19, Jewett published her first important story "Jenny Garrow's Lovers" in the Atlantic Monthly, and her reputation grew throughout the 1870s and 1880s. Jewett used the pen name "Alice Eliot" or "A. C. Eliot" for her early stories.[11] Her literary importance arises from her careful, if subdued, vignettes of country life that reflect a contemporary interest in local color rather than in plot.[12] Jewett possessed a keen descriptive gift that William Dean Howells called "an uncommon feeling for talk - I hear your people." Jewett made her reputation with the novella The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896). A Country Doctor (1884), a novel reflecting her father and her early ambitions for a medical career, and A White Heron (1886), a collection of short stories are among her finest work. Some of Jewett's poetry was collected in Verses (1916), and she also wrote three children's books. Willa Cather described Jewett as a significant influence on her development as a writer, and "feminist critics have since championed her writing for its rich account of women's lives and voices." Cather dedicated her 1913 novel O Pioneers!, based upon memories of her childhood in Nebraska, to Jewett. In 1901 Bowdoin College conferred an honorary doctorate of literature on Jewett, the first woman to be granted an honorary degree by Bowdoin. In Jewett's obituary in 1909, The Boston Globe remarked on the strength that lay in "the detail of her work, in fine touches, in simplicity." . Signed by Author. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.