Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1899.

First edition. A collection of eight short stories telling of rural American life and the Maine coastline, many exploring the lives of widowed women subsequent to the death of the fishing industry.

There are two stories notably interpreted to be queer, “The Queen’s Twin”, which sees the return of Almira Todd, a character from The Country of the Pointed Firs. In “The Queen’s Twin”, Todd introduces the narrator to Abby Martin, a woman who is convinced that she and Queen Victoria are twin sisters. And in “Martha’s Lady,” a servant woman who chooses a seemingly content life alone and single, while never forgetting and yearning for ‘the one whom she truly loved’, a young woman she only worked for one summer.

Small 8vo., grey cloth ruled, lettered and decorated in silver with floral and heart designs to upper board and spine; pp. [xi], 2-232, [iv]; a near-fine copy, lightly bruised and rubbed to boards; a couple of small spots to the rear endpapers; an attractive contemporary ownership inscription and card inserted to cut front free endpaper reads: “Dr. C.H. Hallowell/ Walpole/ Massachusetts/ March 7th 1900”/ “Affectionate wedding Congratulations/ for our dear Miss Hallowell’s/ Brother/ from her friend and his (Mrs) E. N. Hoston-/ Wellesley Mass. March 7th 1900”.