Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 84 Page 85 Page 86 Page 87 Page 88 Page 89 Page 90 Page 91 Page 92 Page 93 Page 94 Page 95 Page 96 Page 97 Page 98 Page 99 Page 100perspectives 40 p o r t l a n d monthly magazine ogist Richard von Krafft-Ebing, was popu- larized,” says Heller. Jewett and Fields sensed a growing sus- picion towards the nature of their relation- ship towards the end of Jewett’s life. Al- though Fields was willing to publish the full extent of their intimate correspondence following Jewett’s death in 1909, there are indications that her editors chose to elimi- nate incriminating details from the letters before publication in 1911. Definitions of sexuality were far less black and white, explains Sarah Way Sher- man, associate professor of English and American studies at the University of New Hampshire and author of Sarah Orne Jew- ett, An American Persephone. “Assessing these unions is difficult from a 20th-century perspective,” Sherman says. “Relationships like the one between Jewett and Fields were true unions: intimate life- long commitments that can serve as models for loving relationships today.” The friendship between Fields, a Boston sophisticate, and Jewett, a relative coun- try girl, turned intimate after the death of Fields’s husband, according to Sherman. “Sometime in the winter of 1881 in the wake of James Fields’s death, Annie Fields and Sarah Jewett fell in love,” she wrote. For the rest of Jewett’s life the two would live much of the time in Fields’s homes in Man- chester-by-the-Sea, New Hampshire, or on Charles Street in Boston, where they were part of a literary crowd that included Willa Cather, Sarah Whitman, Alice James, and other writers and intellectuals of the time. D uring his recent visit to Jew- ett’s hometown, Terry Heller canoed the Salmon Falls River, walked along the Ogunquit coast, and was received at the historical society’s Count- ing House Museum, enjoying much of the scenery captured in Jewett’s books. Remarkably, Main Street today is not all that different from when Jewett lived here. Heller and his wife stayed in a house with an apple orchard Jewett frequented that is just doors away from the historic house where she lived, and which is open to the public for tours. While Fields’s sexuality may be an aca- demic question to, well, academics, Heller knows it could have relevance for individu- als today whose sexuality is marginalized, namely the LGBTQ community. Maine Women Writers Collection Abplanalp Library University of New England