Annie Fields

Born in 1834, Annie Adams Fields was an American writer and editor best known for her memoirs, diaries, and literary sketches. She married publisher James T. Fields of Ticknor and Fields, and their Boston home became a well-known gathering place for leading writers of the day.

After her husband’s death, she continued to write and remained deeply involved in literary life. She is especially remembered for books that drew on her friendships and observations, including works about authors such as Harriet Beecher Stowe and Celia Thaxter, as well as for the journals and letters that preserve a vivid picture of nineteenth-century American culture.

Fields also shared a long and important companionship with writer Sarah Orne Jewett. Today she is often valued not only for her own writing, but for the window she offers into the literary circles of her time and the thoughtful, humane way she recorded the lives around her.