The Country of the Pointed Firs

by Sarah Orne Jewett

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The Country of the Pointed Firs is a remarkable short story sequence or novella published in 1896 by the American novelist and short story writer, Sarah Orne Jewett. The rich vignettes were praised by Henry James as a "beautiful little quantum of achievement." The novel is held together by the unifying theme shared by each story's depiction of characters, particularly the effects of isolation and hardship experienced by the inhabitants of the decaying fishing villages along the Maine coast.
The novel is often likened to Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio.

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Table of Contents

I. The Return

II. Mrs. Todd

III. The Schoolhouse

IV. At the Schoolhouse Window

V. Captain Littlepage

VI. The Waiting Place

VII. The Outer Island

VIII. Green Island

IX. William

X. Where Pennyroyal Grew

XI. The Old Singers

XII. A Strange Sail

XIII. Poor Joanna

XIV. The Hermitage

XV. On Shell-heap Island

XVI. The Great Expedition

XVII. A Country Road

XVIII. The Bowden Reunion

XIX. The Feast's End

XX. Along Shore

XXI. The Backward View

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