The Queen's Twin and Other Stories, 1899
Contents
The Queen's Twin / Atlantic text
A Dunnet Shepherdess /
Atlantic text
Where's Nora?
Bold Words at the Bridge
Martha's Lady / Atlantic text
The Coon Dog / Century text
Aunt Cynthy Dallett / Harper's
Bazar text
The Night before Thanksgiving
According to Richard Cary, Susan Burley Cabot (1822-1907) was a close friend of Jewett. Jewett spent part of each winter at the older woman's home. Cabot was married to the former mayor of Salem, MA, Joseph S. Cabot (Sarah Orne Jewett Letters p. 87). In the 1907 codicil to her will, Jewett mentions a legacy from Susan B. Cabot.
Confusion about the contents of The Queen's
Twin was created in 1910, when Houghton Mifflin issued a
7-volume posthumous set of Jewett's writings. In that set,
Houghton moved "A Dunnet Shepherdess" into The Country of
the Pointed Firs. Having decided not to include Strangers
and Wayfarers in the set, the editors drew one of the
stronger stories from that volume, "By the Morning Boat," to
fill out The Queen's Twin. As a result, one may go
to a library or to Google Books and find versions of The
Queen's Twin with different contents. Weber &
Weber in A Bibliography of the Published Works of Sarah Orne
Jewett explain these changes (pp. 20, 22-3).
Weber & Weber also describe several
variations in the appearance of this book. There
are covers of dark gray, light green, and yellow cloth, all with
silver lettering and decoration. And there is a version
with green cloth and gold decorations.
Weber & Weber (p. 20) explain that the
cover decorations of this edition are by Sarah Wyman Whitman
(1842-1904), whom Richard Cary describes (in Sarah Orne
Jewett Letters, p. 155) as one of the group of talented
women with whom Jewett associated at the Charles Street home of
Annie Fields in Boston. Whitman was a "professional designer of
stained glass windows, a painter, and an illustrator of books."
For Jewett, she also designed the covers of The King of Folly
Island, Betty Leicester, and Strangers &
Wayfarers. Whitman's initials appear on the cover within
the small leaf beneath Jewett's name.
Another variation in the 1910 edition is an
illustration for the frontispiece, "Landing the Dory," by
Charles H. Woodberry, taken from the 1893 edition of Deephaven,
"Cunner
Fishing."
Contents of Distinct Printings
|
Internal
Date: MDCCCXCIX -- olive green cover with silver
print and decoration. WorldCat Description of this edition The queen's twin and other stories / Worldcat indicates that 18 libraries world-wide own a copy of this edition. Internal
Date: MDCCCC -- dark green cover with gold print
and decoration The Queen's Twin WorldCat Description of this edition The queen's twin, and other stories, Worldcat indicates that 22 libraries world-wide own a copy of this edition. Internal
date: MDCCCCI bright green cover with gold
print and decoration The Queen's Twin  Title page of 1901 printing
Courtesy of the Ramaker Library of Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa WorldCat
Description of a 1910 edition The queen's twin : and other stories / Copyright
1890 and 1899 The Queen's Twin This edition includes an illustration at
the front, Landing the Dory. See this
below. It is odd in several ways, since it does
not include "A Dunnet Shepherdess," which appears in
nearly all subsequent printings, but does include "By
the Morning Boat," which had already been collected in
Strangers
and Wayfarers (1890). WorldCat
Description of this edition
The queen's twin : and other stories / Author(s): Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. Publication: Boston ; And New York : Houghton Mifflin Co. ; Cambridge : Riverside Press, Year: 1899 Description: [6], 220 pages : frontispiece ; 17 cm Language: English Contents: The queen's twin.--Where's Nora.--Bold words at the bridge.--Martha's lady.--The coon dog.--Aunt Cynthy Dallett.--The night before Thanksgiving.--By the morning boat. Worldcat Description of London publication of this edition The queen's twin, and other stories.
Author(s): Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. Publication: London, Constable; Boston, Houghton Mifflin Year: 1899 Description: 220 pages illustrations Language: English Contents: The queen's twin.--Where's Nora?--Bold words at the bridge.--Martha's lady.--The coon dog.--Aunt Cynthy Dallett.--The night before Thanksgiving.--By the morning boat. |
 1899 internal date, from Google Books  1900 internal date, from Google Books
in Orange City, Iowa  Spine of 1901 printing Courtesy of the Ramaker Library of Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa |
Landing the Dory from the 1890 and 1899 copyright printing.
Image from Google Books scan of a Stanford University library
copy.
The illustration is by Charles H. Woodberry,
taken from Jewett's 1893 edition of Deephaven, "Cunner
Fishing."
It appears that Jewett and
Houghton, Mifflin remained undecided about the final contents
until Jewett had completed and submitted "A Dunnet
Shepherdess" to Atlantic, where it appeared in the
December 1899 issue. The official publication date,
according to Weber & Weber was 22 November 1899, close to
the time at which the December Atlantic would have
appeared.
The appearance of the book was timed
to take advantage of the Christmas gift market in November and
December of 1899. That Houghton -- like most publishers
-- were interested in exploiting this market is clear in the
advertisement that appeared in Atlantic in July of
1899, which announced this volume as well as another Jewett
story, Betty Leicester's English Christmas. The
ad says that the most interesting events of the latter story
are "connected with the Christmas season, and they are
delightfully described in the story Miss Jewett tells.
The book is brought out in an attractive style, and will be an
unusually suitable holiday gift." The Queen's Twin
finally included two seasonal stories, "The Night before
Thanksgiving" and "Aunt Cynthy Dallett." The latter had
appeared first under the title "The New-Year Guests" and was
listed in the July ad as "On New Year's Day."
Atlantic 84 (July 1899)
p. 31.
This volume will contain the following stories: The
Queen's Twin; Where's Nora; Bold Words at the Bridge; Martha's
Lady; The Coon Dog; On New Year's Day.
Publisher's
Weekly 1444
(September 30, 1899) p. 524.
This volume will contain the following stories: The
Queen's Twin; Where's Nora; Bold Words at the Bridge; Martha's
Lady; The Coon Dog; Aunt Cynthy Dallet; The Gray Mill[s]
of Farley, The Night before Thanksgiving.
Current
Opinion 26:6
(December 1899) p. 507.
... The Queen's Twin, Where's Nora, Bold Words at the
Bridge, Martha's Lady; The Coon Dog, Aunt Cynthy Dallet, The
Gray Mill[s] of Farley, The Night Before Thanksgiving.
Copyright © 1997 - 2015 by Terry Heller
All rights reserved, except that these stories my be freely
copied or downloaded for classroom or scholarly use.
However, certain materials in the notes are the property of
their copyright holders and subject to limitations.
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Revised: July 2015