What Was Boston Marriage? Sarah Orne Jewett and Biography

Abstract

Abstract:This essay reviews five years of scholarship on Sara Orne Jewett (c. 2014–19), with a focus on work foregrounding regionalism and on Queer readings. How does biography inform (or not inform) readings of Jewett's fiction? I conclude that new biographical work on Jewett and particularly her Boston marriage with Annie Adams Fields is needed. A dual biography of the two women has the potential both to deepen historical understanding of same-sex eroticism between women in the nineteenth-century United States and the nature of Boston marriage and to give impetus to new readings of Jewett's fiction.