Boston Coterie

“…[Annie Fields’] beautiful home on Charles Street,—with its garden running down to the river, with its wide view over miles of water to the distant hills, with its vast and lovely library, lined with books and pictures and busts of unique attraction,—became the haunt of our chief poets, wits, and writers, players and workers…being its familiars. There also came every one of significance from abroad, to be received with the delightful bonhomie and boundless hospitality of the host, with the bright and fine bearing of the hostess, to rest in the soft green shadows by the low fire and among the abundant flowers.”
-Harriet Spofford (“Annie Fields,” A Little Book of Friends, 1916)

148 Charles Street in Boston was the place to be when Annie Fields and Sarah Orne Jewett (and before them, Annie Fields and her late husband, James T. Fields) were at home to a circle of dear friends—literary lions and protégés, famous artists and emerging musicians, suffragists and social reformers—whether in a lively group on Saturday afternoons, or for an intimate luncheon or tea.