Although Sarah Oren Jewett hoped to follow in the footsteps of her father, a doctor specializing in obstetrics and diseases of women and children, illness prevented her from following that profession.

Jewett’s home in Maine

Instead while living in South Berwick, Maine, where she had been born in 1849, she began writing and sold her first story at age eighteen.  It was the beginning of a  career of local color pieces, selling her work to Harpers, The Century and The Atlantic.  She went on to write several volumes of poetry and fourteen short story collections.

Jewett as a child

Her own long-time friendship with Annie Fields was called a “Boston Marriage”, a long-term monogamous relationship between two unmarried women.  Their lives were shared with other creative women—poets, writers, musicans and artists.

How slender is the cord that binds

In friendship sympathize

In this cold world below,

Yet, gently touched, unworn ‘t will last

Until life’s earthly day is passed,

And still will stronger grow.

Jewett never married or had children however an indication of her fondness for children were evidenced of stories for younger readers.

Although her work was mostly neglected in her time, an interest in it was revised when women’s studies program became popular at universities.  One story in particular, The Country of the Painted Fir, received special attention from Willa Cather.

After suffering a crippling accident in 1902,  Sarah Orne Jewett died in 1909.