"Don't try to write about people and things, tell them just as they are." Sarah Orne Jewett quoted this advice from her father in one of her few nonfiction articles, "Looking Back on Girlhood," first published in the 7 January 1892 issue of Youth's Companion and later included in The Uncollected Short Stories of Sarah Orne Jewett (1971). Jewett often repeated this suggestion to novice writers, and it lies at the core of her aesthetic, "imaginative realism." She attributed her capacity for keen observation, joy in simple things, and impatience with affectation and insincerity to her father's influence. Knowledge of human nature and attention to detail served Jewett well throughout her career, but her sketches of country life reveal more than chronicling a waning culture. Her themes transcend "local color" and speak to generations of readers about the value of community and the nurturing wisdom of women, more than one hundred...