Fields, Annie Adams

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FIELDS, Annie Adams

Born 6 June 1834, Boston, Massachusetts; died 5 January 1915, Boston, Massachusetts

Wrote under: Annie Fields, Mrs. James T. Fields

Daughter of Zabdiel B. and Sarah Holland Adams; married James T. Fields, 1854

Daughter of a distinguished Boston physician, Annie Adams Fields established a literary salon in her Boston home after her marriage. Most of the literary celebrities of the day were entertained there—Hawthorne, Longfellow, Holmes, Emerson, Whittier, Dickens—as well as theatrical stars such as Ole Bull and Charlotte Cushman. Fields also enjoyed the friendship of several women writers, who formed an informal literary circle of their own. Among them were Sarah Orne Jewett, Celia Thaxter, Louise Imogen Guiney, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. In her later years, Fields became heavily involved in Boston charity work and wrote a social-welfare manual, How to Help the Poor (1883).

Fields' intimate friendship with Jewett began in the early 1880s and lasted until Jewett's death in 1909. During this time the two women were virtually inseparable companions; their travels together included four trips to Europe and two to the Caribbean. Jewett considered Fields' Charles Street house her second home and lived part of each year there. She dedicated The Mate of the Daylight, and Friends Ashore (1884) to Fields, and Fields edited the Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett (1911).

Fields' literary importance lies primarily in two areas: one is the influence she exerted over her husband in the selection of works to be published by Ticknor & Fields, the major publishing house of the time. He valued her judgement as reflecting a woman's point of view. Second, Fields edited important collections of letters and biographical sketches. Her subjects included James T. Fields, John Greenleaf Whittier, Celia Thaxter, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, as well as the Jewett letter collection. While these are not critical, scholarly works (the Jewett collection, especially, is heavily edited), they do provide primary material for the researcher. Her Authors and Friends (1896) is a series of sketches, the best of which are of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Celia Thaxter. Fields' diaries remain unpublished, except for excerpts published by Mark DeWolfe Howe in 1922.

Fields remains a somewhat puzzling figure. Her writings reflect a traditional orientation toward sentimentalism and the cult of true womanhood. However, she was a supporter of "women's emancipation," and her association with Jewett, Cushman, and others suggests a less traditional side. She left for posterity a carefully polished public persona, that of the perfect hostess, the genteel lady, and it is difficult to find the real person underneath.

Other Works:

Ode (1863). Asphodel (1866). The Children of Lebanon (1872). James T. Fields, Biographical Notes and Personal Sketches (1881). Under the Olive (1881). Whittier, Notes of His Life and of His Friendship (1883). A Week Away from Time (written anonymously, with others, 1887). A Shelf of Old Books (1894). The Letters of Celia Thaxter (edited by Fields with R. Lamb, 1895). The Singing Shepherd, and Other Poems (1895). Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe (edited by Fields, 1897). Nathaniel Hawthorne (1899). Orpheus: A Masque (1900). Charles Dudley Warner (1904). Memories of a Hostess (edited by M. D. Howe, 1922). The unpublished diaries of Annie Adams Fields are at the Massachusetts Historical Society.

Bibliography:

Cather, W., Not Under Forty (1936). Davis, A. E., "A Recovery of Connectedness in Annie Adams Fields' Authors and Friends and A Shelf of Old Books" (thesis,1998). Howe, H., The Gentle Americans, 1864-1960: Biography of a Breed (1965). Howe, A. D., Memories of a Hostess (1922). Fields, A., Microfilm Edition of the Annie Adams Fields Papers, 1852-1912 (microfilm, 1981). Matthiessen, F. O., Sarah Orne Jewett (1929). Nigro, C. L., "Annie Adams Fields: Female Voice in a Male Chorus" (thesis,1996). Richards, L., Stepping Westward (1931). Roman, J., Annie Adams Fields: The Spirit of Charles Street (1990). Spofford, H. P., A Little Book of Friends (1916). Tryon, W. S., Parnassus Corner: A Life of James T. Fields (1963). Winslow, H. M., Literary Boston of Today (1902).