Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1884.

First edition, one of 1500 copies printed.

A collection of short stories dedicated to ‘A. F.’, A.K.A. Annie Fields, Jewett’s life long lover and end of life partner. The pair became close at the beginning of the 1880s after the death of Fields’s husband, and entered into what was known at the time as a ‘Boston Marriage’, exchanging rings and vows and committing to one another for the remainder of their lives together. After Jewett’s death in 1909, Fields published their letters in a volume of correspondence, in a public display of defiance against so-called ‘traditional’ values.

A standout story in this collection, ‘Tom’s Husband’ also investigates gender roles and traditional values of the married main characters, Tom and Mary Wilson. Tom is ill suited to the jobs society usually ascribed to a husband, while Mary is aces at them. Her father states ‘it had been a mistake that she was a girl instead of a boy. Such executive ability as hers is often wasted in the more contracted sphere of women and is apt to be more a disadvantage than a help. She was too independent and self-reliant for a wife; it would seem at first thought.’

Small 4to., two-tone brown and green cloth, lettered and ruled in burgundy to upper board, with anchor device to upper right hand corner; lettered in gilt along spine; title page in red and black; pp. [viii], 254, [ii]; coated grey endpapers removed to front portion, with evidence remaining to front gutter; previous ownership name erased from front free endpaper; a couple of small stains and corner creases throughout; perhaps a tad loose in the binding which is lightly scuffed, with a little loss of colour to the cloth and some light stains/scratches; a very uptogether copy, nonetheless.