Sarah Orne Jewett

Born in South Berwick, Maine, on September 3, 1849, she grew up in the world that would later shape her fiction. As a child she often accompanied her physician father on his rounds, an experience that gave her a close view of local communities, speech, and daily life.

She became one of the most important American regional writers of the 19th century, known for stories and novels set in Maine. Critics especially remember The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896), and her short fiction, including A White Heron, is still widely read for its quiet emotional force and sympathetic picture of rural New England.

Jewett spent much of her life in her hometown and died there on June 24, 1909. Her writing is often praised for being gentle without sentimentality, and later writers, including Willa Cather, recognized her as a lasting influence.