Jewett (1849-1909) drew heavily on the New Englanders she encountered growing up in South Berwick, Maine, to populate her well-crafted short stories ( The Country of the Pointed Firs, 1896) and character sketches ( Deep haven , 1877), which were suffused by her profound love of 19th-century rural life. Silverthorne ( Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings ) presents a thoroughly researched picture of Jewett's privileged upbringing (her father was a doctor) and her adult life as a well-traveled and cosmopolitan writer who divided her time between Maine and Boston, where she lived with Annie Fields, whose literary salons were attended by such writers as James Russell Lowell, Matthew Arnold and John Greenleaf Whittier. Although Silverthorne acknowledges Fields's and Jewett's deep regard for one another, she feels that there is not enough evidence to establish whether theirs was a sexual relationship. This competent analysis of Jewett's work is marred by occasionally stilted writing. Photos not seen by PW. (Apr.)
Among the numerous recent writings related to the 19th-century Maine writer Sara Orne Jewett, none combines the life of the writer and her works to the extent that Silverthorne ( Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings , Overlook, 1988) does in this biography. Jewett comes alive as Silverthorne reveals her development from a daring, nature-loving, day-dreaming child to an independent, caring, intelligent writer in the company of distinguished writers like James Russell Lowell, William Dean Howells, Julia Ward Howe, and Henry James. Silverthorne effectively incorporates Jewett's life experiences, values, travels, and countless friendships with the themes of her writings and her development as a writer. One finishes this biography regretting not having known Jewett personally but thankful that her time has come.-- Jeris Cassel, Rutgers Univ. Libs., New Brunswick, N.J.
Silverthorne, a historian who is also the author of "Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings: Sojourner at Cross Creek", approaches the life of Jewett sympathetically. Her motivation in the work, she states, is to increase modern appreciation for the American realist/regionalist's work. Drawing heavily on unpublished letters and diaries (which were largely unavailable to earlier biographers), she carefully sketches the range of Jewett's natural, social, and intellectual influences. However, her identification with Jewett comes out in odd ways, which ultimately undermine the book's possibilities as a critical portrait. Quaint-sounding turns of phrase, with their nineteenth-century rhythms, occupy shaky ground between paraphrases and sourceless quotations of the writer's work. Silverthorne's brief analyses of Jewett's published work seem to make little use of the critical tools currently available to literary scholars. In one instance, she chooses to spar with contemporary feminist critics who have speculated about Jewett's sexuality (Jewett was never married and had several close female friends). Instead of evaluating them through the eyes of the modern reader whom she is trying to entice, she handles them with a sort of Victorian indignity, as if on Jewett's behalf. Nevertheless, this volume's coverage of the full scope of Jewett's life will provide readers unfamiliar with her work a valuable and accessible introduction to it.
