The Artistic Collaboration between Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909) &
Sarah Wyman Whitman (1842-1904)
“[…] and that whatever loss (individual) is entailed in this fusion of interests, is more
than made good by a new and more complete existence.”
– Whitman in a letter to Jewett, July 1884
(insert portrait of Jewett from web site and Whitman from A Studio of Her Own book)
Perhaps the most elegant example of a collaboration between book author and book
designer from the PBO collection involves the artistic partnership between the popular
late nineteenth century author, Sarah Orne Jewett, and one of the first profession book
binders in American, Sarah Wyman Whitman.
Sarah Wyman Whitman was first introduced to Sarah Orne Jewett in the 1880’s. Their
professional relationship and friendship remained strong during the rest of their lifetime.
Robert Gale explains, “Mrs. Whitman was Jewett’s closest friend after Annie Fields.
Jewett admired her, and welcomed her comments on fiction she wrote.” In fact, Jewett,
who only dedicated ten of her twenty books to her colleagues and friends, took great
delight when she inscribed Strangers and Wayfarers to, “S.W. (Whitman): Painter of
New England Men and Women/ New England Fields and Shores.”
Whitman held the distinction of being one of the first professional bindings designers in
America. Among her other achievements was being a celebrated stained glass designer,
and owning her own stained glass factory. Whitman’s reputation as a skilled artisan lead
to her being selected as one of the contributing window designers to Memorial Hall,
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
(insert a picture of Transept window [stained glass Art Nouveau windows] at Harvard:
www.fas.harvard.edu/~memhall/staingls.html)
However, Whitman was not only a book designer, but also an artist who received a large
part of her training in France. While in France, Whitman was heavily influenced by the
Art Nouveau movement, an artistic movement which was interested in making art objects
out of the “common materials” that surrounded modern daily life. Art Nouveau was also
concerned with taking artistic production out of the elite theaters of the Art Museum and
the Private Gallery.
Excellent examples of this theory in practice are the Metro Stations in Paris designed by
Hector Guimard. For artists and designer’s who were influenced by Art Nouveau’s
aesthetic theories, like Sarah Wyman Whitman, the new technological phenomena of the
mass produced book was a powerful venue for expanding artistic expression.
Sarah Orne Jewett’s fictional works build their centers around middle class characters
living in small prosaic New England towns. From this vantage point, Jewett explores the
ebb and flow nineteenth century domesticity. Perhaps Whitman drew her inspiration for
her binding designs from Jewett’s acute attention to the daily lives of her characters.
Whitman writes to Jewett in 1882 after having read a proof copy Jewett’s novel, Country
Doctor, “I think it delightful: written with that combination of pure literary style and
aromatic individual flavor that gives one such special pleasure, and the people live and
breathe for me and take their place in the New England landscape.”
(insert a picture of Country Doctor cover from PBO collection)
It is perhaps most evident through their correspondence that Whitman and Jewett enjoyed
a friendship as well as a professional relationship. The two women wrote letters back and
forth to each other from their homes in New England and from their travels abroad. It is
in these letters that one uncovers the sincere mutual respect and appreciation Whitman
and Jewett had for one another.
In a letter to Jewett’s life long companion, Annie Fields, Jewett explains her plans for the
publication and presentation of her short story “A White Heron:”
Mr. Howells thinks that this age frowns upon the romantic, that it is no use to
write romance anymore; but dear me how much of it there is left in every-day life after
all. It must be the fault of the writers that so much writing is dull, but what shall I do
with my ‘White Heron’ now she is written? She isn’t a very good magazine story, but I
love her, and I mean to keep her for the beginning of my next book and the reason for
Mrs. Whitman’s pretty cover.”
(Insert a Cover form PBO collection for White Heron book)
Jewett and Whitman both shared an aesthetic sympathy for the “romantic” in “every day
life.” Each of them lived most of their lives in New England and their works were
influenced by the last vestiges of Emerson and Thoreau’s transcendentalism, a
philosophy influenced by English Romanticism that espouses that contact with Nature is
spiritually restorative. Whitman displays her similar romantic sympathies when she
writes to Jewett in 1896 about Jewett’s The Country of Pointed Firs, “I love to have you
write and write in these levels; where a star and pebble make part of the divine chord.”
(Insert PBO Country of Pointed Firs)
It is perhaps most evident through their correspondence that Whitman and Jewett enjoyed
a friendship as well as a professional relationship. The two women wrote letters back and
forth to each other from their homes in New England and from their travels abroad. It is
in these letters that one uncovers the sincere mutual respect and appreciation Whitman
and Jewett had for each others artistic endeavors.
Jewett remained so attached to Whitman’s binding designs that even after Whitman’s
death she wrote to her publishers about the new edition of her novel Betty Leicester, “But
will you please give directions at the Press that the old bindings should be restored to
Betty Leicester? –the scarlet and white- (sic) for it is an ugly book at present; the die does
not sit well sideways on the corner and this green and red cloth are very far from the
beauty of Mrs. Whitman’s charming design.”
(Put red Betty Leister cover in and close up image of the two Sarah’s names running
together from spine)
Bibliography of Works by Sarah Orne Jewett:
1877: Deephaven
1878: Play Days
1879: Old Friends and New
1881: Country By-Ways*
1884: The Mate of the Daylight, and Friends Ashore
1884: A Country Doctor
1885: A Marsh Island
1886: A White Heron and Other Stories
1887: The Story of the Norman
1888: The King of Folly Island and Other People
1890: Betty Leicester
1890: Tales of New England
1890: Strangers and Wayfarers
1893: A Native of Winby and Other Tales
1894: Betty Leicester’s English Christmas
1895: The Life of Nancy
1896: The Country of Pointed Firs
1899: The Queens’ Twin and Other Stories
1901: The Tory Lover
1905: An Empty Purse
1911: Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett*
1916: Verses*
*1st Volume of Jewett’s work to have a cover design by Sarah Wyman Whitman
*Posthumously Published and Edited by Annie Fields
*Posthumously Published and Edited by Annie Fields
List of Jewett’s Works Whose Binding Designs were Done by Whitman
A Country Doctor
The Mate of Daylight
A Marsh Island
A White Heron
The King of Folly Island
Betty Leicester
Strangers and Wayfarers
A Native of Winby
1884
1884
1885
1886
1888
1890
1890
1893
Deephaven
Tales of New England
The Life of Nancy
The Country of Pointed Firs
Betty Leicester’s Christmas
The Queen’s Twin
The Tory Lover
1894
1894
1894
1896
1899
1899
1901*
* This design is attributed to Whitman although there is some doubt whether or nor
Whitman herself actually designed the cover or if the cover was based on earlier
Whitman designs.
Selected Bibliography:
Cary, Richard. Sarah Orne Jewett. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1962.
Gale, Robert L. A Sarah Orne Jewett Companion. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood
Press, 1999.
Critical Essays on Sarah Orne Jewett. Ed. Gwen Nagel. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1984.
Erica E. Hirshler. A Studio of Her Own: Women Artists in Boston 1870-1940. Boston:
Museum of Fine
Arts, 2001.
Collected Letters
Collected Letters
Online Sources:
Sarah Orne Jewett Text Project:
www.public.coe.edu/~theller/soj
Sarah Orne Jewett Biographical Essay at Publishers’ Bindings Online:
http://bindings.ua.lib
Chronology of Jewett’s Published Works and Links to Other Jewett Sites at Washington
State University:
www.wsu.edu/~campell/amlit/jewett.htm
Sarah Wyman Whitman Examples of Book Bindings:
http://bindings.lib.ua.edu
Sarah Wyman Whitman Biographical Essay:
http://bindings.lib.ua.edu
Examples of Whitman’s Stained Glass Work at the Memorial Chapel:
www.fas.harvard.edu/~memhall/staingls.html