This beloved short story - a classic coming-of-age tale by the author of The Country of the Pointed Firs is gloriously illustrated with pencil drawings by Maine artist Douglas Alvord. Sylvia, a city girl more at home with animals than with people, has come to the Maine Woods to live with her grandmother. One summer afternoon in the late 1800s, her life is changed forever when she meets an attractive young ornithologist searching for birds to snare, stuff, preserve, and display.

The story of an endearing, unlikely friendship set against the backdrop of a remote and beautiful Maine coastal town, The Country of the Pointed Firs is one of Sarah Orne Jewett's most loved works, and it quickly earned her a reputation as a talented writer upon its publication. Praised by Alice Brown for its "idyllic atmosphere of country life," Jewett's moving novel shows her intimate understanding of New England and its unique inhabitants, whose prickly exteriors often concealed a warm and loyal nature. This Modern Library Paperback Classics edition includes four additional Dunnet Landing stories: "The Queen's Twin," "A Dunnet Shepherdess," "The Foreigner," and "William's Wedding."

Wonderfully descriptive prose from distinguished regionalist writer includes 10 tales dealing with female friendships, poverty, and compassion: "The Town Poor," "Miss Peck’s Promotion," "The Passing of Sister Barsett," and seven more.

Reproduction of the original: The Tory Lover by Sarah Orne Jewett

In the late nineteenth century, Sarah Orne Jewett ascended to the top tiers of the pantheon of American popular fiction writers on the strength of her tales, which combine keen psychological insight and charming local color. This collection of short stories highlights her wide-ranging mastery; fan favorites include "A Lost Lover" and "Madame Ferry."

How is this book unique? Font adjustments & biography included Unabridged (100% Original content) Illustrated About The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett The Country of the Pointed Firs is an 1896 story sequence by Sarah Orne Jewett which is considered by some literary critics to be her finest work. Henry James described it as her "beautiful little quantum of achievement." Ursula K. Le Guin praises its "quietly powerful rhythms." Because it is loosely structured, many critics view the book not as a novel, but a series of sketches; however, its structure is unified through both setting and theme. The novel can be read as a study of the effects of isolation and hardship experienced by the inhabitants of the decaying fishing villages along the Maine coast. Sarah Orne Jewett, who wrote the book when she was 47, was largely responsible for popularizing the regionalism genre with her sketches of the fictional Maine fishing village of Dunnet Landing. Like Jewett, the narrator is a woman, a writer, unattached, genteel in demeanor, intermittently feisty and zealously protective of her time to write. The narrator removes herself from her landlady's company and writes in an empty schoolhouse, but she also continues to spend a great deal of time with Mrs. Todd, befriending her hostess and her hostess's family and friends. Plot: The narrator, a Bostonian, returns after a brief visit a few summers prior, to the small coastal town of Dunnet, Maine, in order to finish writing her book. Upon arriving she settles in with Almira Todd, a widow in her sixties and the local apothecary and herbalist. The narrator occasionally assists Mrs. Todd with her frequent callers, but this distracts her from her writing and she seeks a room of her own. Renting an empty schoolhouse with a broad view of Dunnet Landing, the narrator can apparently concentrate on her writing, although Jewett does not use the schoolhouse to show the narrator at work but rather in meditation and receiving company. The schoolhouse is one of many locations in the novel which Jewett elevates to mythic significance and for the narrator the location is a center of writerly consciousness from which she makes journeys out and to which others make journeys in, aware of the force of the narrator's presence, out of curiosity, and out of respect for Almira Todd. After a funeral, Captain Littlepage, an 80-year-old retired sailor, comes to the schoolhouse to visit the narrator because he knows Mrs. Todd. He tells a story about his time on the sea and she is noticeably bored so he begins to leave. She sees that she has offended him with her display of boredom, so she covers her tracks by asking him to tell her more of his story. The Captain's story cannot compare to the stories that Mrs. Todd, Mrs. Todd's brother and mother, and residents of Dunnet tell of their lives in Dunnet. The narrator's friendship with Mrs. Todd strengthens over the course of the summer, and the narrator's appreciation of the Maine coastal town increases each day.