A Country Doctor

Sarah Orne Jewett

BiblioBazaar, 2009 - History - 360 pages

Brimming with period realism and layers of thematic depth, this novel is both a luminous portrayal of rural Maine and a semi-autobiographical look at Jewett's world in the late 19th century. In it, Nan'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's own conflicts. It also eloquently gives voice to the women's issues of Jewett's time, cementing her as an icon in American literature. Introduction by Paula Blanchard.

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LibraryThing Review

User Review  - LukeS - LibraryThing

Nan Price was orphaned in infancy, then raised by her grandmother, until her upbringing is finished by Dr. John Leslie. A case can certainly be made that the eponymous doctor is our Dr. Leslie, rather ...

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - vesnaslav - LibraryThing

Through the dialogue and incidental plot progression, even through the characterization of major and minor characters, it is easy to see Jewett's great influence on the Canadian writer Lucy Maud ...

About the author

Theodora Sarah Orne Jewett was born in South Berwick, Maine on September 3, 1849. Unable to attend school because of arthritis, she learned about coastal life in New England as she accompanied her father, a doctor, on his rounds. He encouraged both her reading and her writing. When she began submitting fiction in 1867, using the pseudonyms A. D. Eliot, Alice Eliot, and Sarah C. Sweet, her chosen topic was often the life and people of her native, rural Maine. Her first published story appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in 1869 and her first short story collection, Deephaven, was published in 1877. Her first novel, A Country Doctor was published in 1884. Her other works include A Marsh Island (1885), A White Heron and Other Stories (1886), A Native of Winby (1893), Tales of New England (1894) and The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896). She stopped writing in 1902, after a fall left her with severe head injuries. She died of a cerebral hemorrhage on June 24, 1909.

Bibliographic information

• Title: A Country Doctor
• Author: Sarah Orne Jewett
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: BiblioBazaar, 2009
• ISBN: 110334918X, 9781103349180
• Length: 360 pages
• Subjects: History / General