The Country of the Pointed Firs

Sarah Orne Jewett’s finest work is less a novel than a series of linked sketches, drawn from a summer on the coast of Maine. The unnamed narrator, a writer from the city, takes lodgings with Almira Todd, a widowed herb-gatherer whose kitchen becomes a doorway into the life of the fishing village of Dunnet Landing. Little happens in the way of plot. Instead there are visits, remembered stories, a family reunion, and long afternoons with sea captains and solitary islanders growing old at the edge of the water. Quiet and closely observed, it stands as a lasting portrait of a fading New England world. Free to read as a PDF and EPUB edition.