ALS Sarah Orne Jewett to Mary Rice Jewett, 1900 September 12

The collection includes manuscripts, correspondence, articles, reviews, research papers, memorabilia, photographs, printed material, artifacts, and family business records. The manuscripts include: a poem written by Jewett at age fourteen; notes found in her personal copy of the Norman Conquest; "Indians," her earliest known manuscript; and a complete manuscript copy of the "Night Before Thanksgiving." The correspondence with family, friends and business associates gives a view into Jewett's family and social life as well as her life as a writer. The letters to and from Annie Fields include a consoling note after the death of Fields' husband, James T. Fields, in 1881. Jewett and Fields long friendship is documented in their own letters and in mentions in letters to others including letters that Fields and Mary Rice Jewett wrote to others after Sarah's death dealing with her estate. Close family relationships are presented in the many letters to Mary Rice Jewett particularly in the care the aunts' took of nephew Theodore Eastman after his mother Carrie Eastman, Jewett's sister, died. The letters to Abbie S. Beede, who typed manuscripts for Sarah and Annie, shows the development of the relationship with Beede from distant to friendly with Jewett sometimes asking Beede for her opinion of a particular story. The third series is composed of published articles both original and in photocopy. The fourth series includes newspaper and journal articles, book reviews, and scholarly papers on Sarah Orne Jewett. The fifth is made up of photographs of Jewett, her family, and her home and other locations in South Berwick, Maine. The memorabilia series includes calling cards, a silk handkerchief, and a Sarah Wyman Whitman stained glass wreath. The family/business series has many family business receipts and a lecture on electricity written by Jewett's father.