The Country of the Pointed Firs, Jewett's 1896 novel, is often considered her greatest work and one of the nineteenth century's best pieces of regional fiction. Set in a New England coastal village and the surrounding countryside, and narrated in a strong female voice, it tells the stories of the typically eccentric people who shape the landscape, and are shaped by it.

Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio (1919) does for the American Midwest what Jewett's work does for New England: presents universally recognized characters in a highly localized setting. Anderson's male narrator observes life in his small town, recording the secret loneliness and pain of his neighbors.

Mary Austin's 1903 The Land of Little Rain  is an early work of Southwestern regional literature. It is nonfictional but very personal, a detailed look at the terrain, plants, animals, and Native Americans in the Sierras...