This summer, the Bar Harbor Historical Society is sponsoring a series of dramatic readings with local actors, presenting the secret lives of four Maine writers through an exploration of their own writings about their same-sex relationships, including letters, poems, and memoirs. The readings celebrate Maine history and culture, and broaden our understanding of some of our most famous authors.

As a young woman, novelist Sarah Orne Jewett was deeply frustrated in her crushes on women her age, because, unlike her, they did not have a successful career that could support them. The only way for her girlfriends to escape from their families of birth was to marry men and raise families of their own. Her situation changed radically when Jewett met Annie Fields, a Boston widow and philanthropist who had inherited a publishing company. Their letters bear witness to a productive and enduring partnership.