Novel
The Country of the Pointed Firs
Sarah Orne Jewett · 1896
Synopsis
A writer from the city comes back to spend the summer at Dunnet Landing, a port on the coast of Maine, to make headway on an overdue piece of work. She lodges with a widow in her sixties who sells herbs and knows everyone, helps her gather her herbs, rents the village school closed for the holidays, and is gradually drawn in by the visits. An old captain tells her what has been seen in the northern seas, a shy brother lives on an island with his mother, a family reunion brings together an entire district. Nothing else happens, and that is the point.
Context
The text appears in the Atlantic Monthly in four instalments, from January to September 1896, then in book form from Houghton Mifflin the same year, expanded by two chapters. It has no plot: the chapters are visits, and the unity comes from the place and from the voice that listens. An edition of 1910, authorised by the author's sister, inserted three stories that had appeared separately, which scholarly editions have since undone. In 1925, Willa Cather ranked it with The Scarlet Letter and Huckleberry Finn among the three American books that seemed to her destined for a long life.
Who it is for
A short book without a plot, made up of chapters that can be read separately. The speech of Maine is recorded with care. Only one French translation exists, from 2004.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the high point of its author's work and as one of the books that made American regionalism known.
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