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| John Singer Sargent's portrait of Annie Fields |
I recently acquired a biography of James T. Fields, the
Boston publisher who printed the works of most of America’s great writers of
the 19th Century. The fly-leaf of the book states that his second
wife, Annie Adams Fields, was Boston’s greatest hostess of the day.
It occurred to me that perhaps the currently popular “Mrs.
Fields’ Cookies” might have originated from this famous hostess (after all, Dolley
Madison has cakes named after her because of her renown as a hostess, so this
idea wasn’t so far-fetched). I looked it up, but there is no relation. The “Mrs.
Fields” of cookie fame is a contemporary American woman by the name of Fields,
who started her chocolate-chip cookie business in 1977.
But the 19th Century Mrs. Fields is an
interesting person in her own right. Born in Boston on June 6, 1834, she
married James Thomas Fields, a widower, in 1854. The match was quite suitable –
she had literary interests and skills to match those of her husband, whose firm
– Ticknor and Fields – was the most distinguished publisher’s imprint in
America. Fields consulted with his wife about the selection of works that he
was considering for publication; he valued her judgment and was concerned with
her point of view, as representative of that of the American woman. A deep love
and respect grew between Annie and her romantic “Jamie.”
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| James T. Fields |
James, who was also editor of The Atlantic Monthly for some time, wooed authors from all over the
country, and Annie entertained them in their home. Annie not only nurtured
these literary figures for intellectual benefit, but she also provided
considerable support to those with talent. Her encouragement meant much to
those who received it.
James, whose firm associated with Boston’s Old Corner
Bookstore which came to be known by its patrons as “Parnassus Corner,”
established close business relationships with the likes of Longfellow, Oliver
Wendell Holmes, Whittier, James Russell Lowell, Emerson, Thoreau, Julia Ward
Howe, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Bret Harte. Business is
often sealed with bonhomie, and these
people regularly engaged in social intercourse at the Fields’ home on Charles
Street, known for the finest in hospitality.
Ticknor and Fields also published internationally famous
authors, and these writers attended Annie’s soirees and salons as well. Among
them were Tennyson, Browning, Kingsley, Charles Reade, Thackeray, and Dickens.
A party at the Fields’ house must have been quite an
affair. Imagine a parlor game of charades with the likes of Dickens and
Hawthorne!
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| Old Corner Bookstore in Boston |
Annie’s ability was not limited to hospitality. She was
interested in women’s issues. She was a writer, a philanthropist, and a social reformer.
She supported abolition and the women’s right to vote movement. She held that “women’s
emancipation” could be achieved in a context of traditional women’s roles and cultural
femininity. She compiled a biography of Harriet Beecher Stowe despite the
controversy over the “the little woman who wrote the book that started this
great [civil] war” (as Lincoln greeted Stowe in 1862). She founded the Holly
Tree Inns, coffeehouses which served affordable, nutritious meals, and the
Lincoln Street Home which provided safe, inexpensive lodging for single working
women.
Of her writing: she wrote poetry and plays, and edited
collections of letters and diaries. She
is currently best known for her short biographical sketches, considered sharp
and decisive portraits, of leading literary figures from both sides of the
Atlantic.
After James died in 1881, Annie remained active in the
literary world. During her husband’s life, she had become good friends with
Sarah Orne Jewett of South Berwick, Maine, whose works James had published. Jewett
had become her closest friend, and the two of them lived together until Sarah’s
death in 1909.
Annie Adams Fields died on January 5, 1915.
SOURCES
“Parnassus Corner: A Life of James T. Fields, Publisher
to the Victorians,” W. S. Tryon (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company) 1963.
Wikipedia: Annie Adams Fields http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Adams_Fields
Matt & Andrei Koymasky: The Living Room: Biographies http://andrejkoymasky.com/liv/fam/biof1/fields01.html
American Literary Blog: Birth of Annie Adams Fields http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/birth-of-annie-adams-fields.html
IMAGES
Painting of Annie
Adams Fields by John Singer Sargent, Boston Athenaeum Fine Arts Collection
Old Corner
Bookstore, location of Ticknor & Fields, courtesy of Wikipedia
Wikimedia: James T. Fields http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:James_T_Fields_albumen.jpg
