Country of the Pointed Firs
'Country of the Pointed Firs' Summary
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.
Book Details
Author
Sarah Orne Jewett
United States
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 impo...
More on Sarah Orne JewettDownload eBooks
Listen/Download Audiobook
Related books
The Bent Twig by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
Semi-autobiographical series of incidents in the life of an intellectual American family in the late 19th - early 20th Century as seen by favored daug...
A Country Doctor by Sarah Orne Jewett
A Country Doctor is a fiction novel by American author Sarah Orne Jewett. The book, which was first published in 1884, was based on the relationship b...
A Girl of High Adventure by L. T. Meade
Marguerite St. Juste was Irish on her mother's side, who was born of the Desmonds of Desmondstown in the County Kerry. Marguerite's father was a Frenc...
Oldtown Folks by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Oldtown Folks is an 1869 novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. It is written from the first-person perspective of a young man named Horace Holyoke,...
Henrietta Temple by Benjamin Disraeli
Henrietta Temple is a semi-autobiographical novel and the author's first true success. Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield and later British Prime...
In Chancery (Forsyte Saga Vol. 2) by John Galsworthy
In Chancery is the second novel of the Forsyte Saga trilogy by John Galsworthy and was originally published in 1920, some fourteen years after The Man...
A Superfluous Woman by Emma Francis Brooke
“A Superfluous Woman” quickly became one of the most widely read of the “New Woman” novels that appeared at the end of the 19th century. At the openin...
The Crucifixion of Philip Strong by Charles M. Sheldon
What would you do if you woke up one day and found yourself crucified? Philip Strong is a wealthy and successful businessman who has it all: money, p...
The Tale of Rusty Wren by Arthur Scott Bailey
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a tiny bird, living in a hole in a tree and singing to the world? The Tale of Rusty Wren by Arthur...
Bonne-Marie, a Tale of Normandy and Paris by Henry Gréville
"A young woman's journey from the shores of Normandy to the bustling streets of Paris." In this novel, Henry Gréville tells the story of Bonne-Marie,...
Reviews for Country of the Pointed Firs
No reviews posted or approved, yet...