Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1885.

First edition.

One of Jewett’s lesser known works and “the first American gay novel” according to lecturer Dr. Don James Brown. A Marsh Island details the story of a love triangle, in which all of the characters involved seek to, in one way or another, to flee from conventional marital life.

It was towards the end of her life that Jewett proclaimed A Marsh Island to be her “best story”. Despite being known today as a writer of vignettes and short tales, the novel was groundbreaking for its depiction of queer kinship and same-sex domesticity, and was written towards the beginning of the author’s decade-long relationship with Annie Fields. Relatively overlooked during her lifetime, it explores overlapping themes of the rural and urban, and the purpose of young women living at the time in the marsh lands of Northeastern Massachusetts.

8vo., two-toned green cloth lettered with decorative border in black to upper cover; lettered in gilt to backstrip; pp. [vii], 4-292, [iii], 2-12 [ads]; [ii]; binding waterstained, with one larger patch of discolouration to the lower board; rubbed along spine and corners with some chipping to the cloth; previous ownership names to both endpapers; rear free endpaper torn with approximately 4 x 5.5cm of loss to page (no text loss); the odd finger mark and corner crease; else very good internally.