Sarah Orne Jewett is a famous figure in southern Maine. Now she's going to appear on a postage stamp!
An image of renowned South Berwick author Sarah Orne Jewett against a backdrop of her beloved Maine coast will appear on a U.S. commemorative postage stamp, one of 19 new images that will be issued for 2026.
The images portray cultural icons, historic events, and the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence being celebrated next year.
“The 35th stamp in the Literary Arts series honors Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909), a lifelong resident of Maine and a foundational figure in American literary regionalism,” according to the U.S. Postal Service’s announcement in October.
Jewett published several novels, as well as numerous short stories, poems, essays and a correspondence collection that included hundreds of letters to her partner, Annie Adams Fields.
“I’m very impressed that she has a stamp along with other notables in a year when we celebrate our 250th anniversary,” said Alyssa Lapierre, adult services librarian at the South Berwick Public Library, noting Jewett is taking an esteemed place among such historical figures as Phillis Wheatley, Harriet Powers and Abigail Adams.
The stamp’s image was designed by Postal Service art director Ethel Kessler using a portrait painted by Mark Summers, according to the Postal Service. The coastal background evokes a scene from Jewett’s best-known novel, “The Country of the Pointed Firs.”
“I wanted to really tie her to the age she lived in and to the landscape of Maine,” Summers said in the announcement.
Susan Morse, a member of the local Jewett Writers Group, recalled her connection to Jewett’s novel when she first moved to Maine.
“I can’t think of Sarah Orne Jewett without thinking of her most famous book,” Morse said, referring to “Pointed Firs.” “When I first read it, I was transported to the late 1800s in Maine. I loved her almost poetic writing and descriptions of people and places.”
Jewett, born in 1849 in her grandfather’s Georgian-style home at the corner of Portland and Main streets in South Berwick, got her inspiration from the people she knew in her hometown.
She lived in her grandfather’s home until she was five years old, then moved with her family next door to 37 Portland St., home of the South Berwick Public Library from 1971 to 2012 and now known as the Jewett-Eastman House.
At 38, Jewett moved back to 5 Portland St. with her sister Mary and lived and wrote there until her death in 1909, having spent part of the years between 1882 and 1909 in Boston with Annie Fields. Both Jewett homes are now owned and operated by Historic New England.
David Ramsay of South Berwick, a tour guide with Historic New England, described how a rapidly changing nation and town influenced Jewett’s writing.
“She witnessed the transition from a rural, agrarian and shipbuilding economy to an industrial order, as her town of South Berwick saw the building of factories, like the shoe factory and the cotton mills down on the Salmon Falls River,” Ramsay said.
He noted Jewett’s novels and stories also showed her love of her historic home and her strong focus on everyday Maine people, especially women, as she illustrated the quiet dignity and strength of the women of her time.
In an excerpt from “A Country Doctor,” written in 1884, Jewett described South Berwick, which she called Old Fields.
“There was one long street which had plenty of room on either side for most of the houses, and where it divided, each side of the First Parish Church, it became the East road and the West road, and the rest of the dwellings strayed off somewhat undecidedly toward the world beyond,” she wrote.
Jewett’s portraits of New Englanders have “left an indelible mark on American literature,” the U.S. Postal Service noted in issuing the stamp.
The words “three ounce” on Jewett’s stamp indicates it will always be valid for first class envelopes up to three ounces in weight. A Forever® stamp is good for envelopes up to one ounce. The first date of issue and issue location have not been announced.
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