A Country Doctor

Though not as well-known as the writers she influenced Sarah Orne Jewett nevertheless remains one of the most important American novelists of the late nineteenth century. Published in 1884 Jewett&#146;s first novel <b>A Country Doctor</b><i></i> is a luminous portrayal of rural Maine and a semiautobiographical look at her world. In it Nan&#146;s struggle to choose between marriage and a career as a doctor between the confining life of a small town and a self-directed one as a professional mirrors Jewett&#146;s own conflicts as well as eloquently giving voice to the leading women&#146;s issues of her time. Perhaps even more important Jewett&#146;s perfect details about wild flowers and seaside wharfs farm women knitting by the fireside and sailors going upriver to meet the moonlight convey a realism that has seldom been surpassed and stamp her writing with her signature style. A contemporary and friend of Willa Cather Harriet Beecher Stowe and Julia Ward Howe Sarah Orne Jewett is widely recognized as a pathfinder in American literary history courageously pursuing a road less traveled that led the way for other women to follow.