Jewett is widely regarded as one of the best American local color authors of the nineteenth century, and The Country of the Pointed Firs is indisputably her masterpiece. At the time of its initial publication in 1896, Jewett was firmly established as one of the leading writers of her day and a master of the "local color" tale, vividly portrayed through her Maine coast characters in previous stories. Paula Blanchard observes that, by 1891, Jewett "was one of America's best-loved and most admired authors."

The Country of the Pointed Firs was warmly received by British and American critics of the day, who saw in Jewett's narrator a mature version of her earlier narrators. The book was praised for its avoidance of the sentimentality and quaintness that could be detected in her earlier works, as well as the more skillful degree of involvement on the part of the narrator...