The Country of the Pointed Firs

Sarah Orne Jewett

Jan 1896 · Houghton, Mifflin

About this ebook

This collection of 21 short stories is often called a "story cycle" or a novel in stories. The unnamed narrator is, like Jewett, an unattached female writer who zealously protects her time to write. She returns to Dunnet, Maine, a small coastal village she had visited a few years prior, in order to finish writing a book. She befriends several of the native residents, including the apothecary Mrs. Todd, retired sailor Captain Littlepage, and other residents. Though it is loosely structured, the book is unified through both its setting and the theme of hardship and isolation suffered by the residents of the decaying seaside town.