Under the Olive

First edition. 3-1/2 x 5-3/8 inches. iv, (2), [3]-317pp. Worn original green cloth with embossed design and gilt logos and type on front and spine. Previous owners names and dates on front endpaper. Good condition. A collection of poetry, Under the Olive, which included the poem "Not by will, and not in striving": Published anonymously, this volume contains 19 verses written in classical meter on subjects such as Achilles, Sophocles, and Pandora. The book was well received. Harriet Beecher Stowe, a close friend of Fields, was happy for the book's reception, but she thought that Fields' charity work had a "higher beauty."

Fields's first collection of poems, Under the Olive. (1881), became available near the end of 1880. In Annie Adams Fields (2002), Rita Gollin notes that Fields's Under the Olive (Copyright 1881) appeared in November of 1880 (p. 202)

Annie Adams Fields was a poet, philanthropist and social reformer, who wrote dozens of biographies of famous writers who were also her friends. She founded innovative charities to assist the poor residents of Boston and campaigned for the rights of women, particularly the right to vote and to earn a medical degree. She produced two books of her own poetry, Under the Olive (1880) and The Singing Shepherd and Other Poems (1895)

James Thomas Fields (1817-81) Massachusetts publisher. Ann ("Annie") West Adams Fields (1834-1915), his second wife (married 15 November 1854). Annie is credited with helping Fields recruit such authors as Emma Lazarus, Sarah Orne Jewett, Horatio Alger, and Celia Thaxter. The dinners and literary salons they hosted in their Charles Street home became a fixture of Boston society. "I stood as much in awe of him as his jovial soul would let me," William Dean Howells wrote two decades after Fields died. "He gave aesthetic character to the house of Ticknor & Fields" (Literary Friends and Acquaintances, New York, 1900, p. 40).