A young girl’s silent, self-sacrificing defence of nature is at the heart of the much anthologized American short story, “A White Heron”. The story, hailed as a “tiny classic” when it first appeared in 1886 (Silverthorne, 125), resembles a fable with its seemingly simple elements of an innocent girl, a charming young man, a rustic setting remote from worldly concerns, and a beautiful, threatened bird.
“A White Heron” was the title piece in a book of short stories by American writer Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1901), published by Houghton Mifflin. Like Jewett’s earlier story collection Deephaven and her highly praised later collection The Country of the Pointed Firs, “A White Heron” is set in the author’s home state of Maine, considered a rural backwater in an era of
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Citation: Paton, Priscilla. "A White Heron". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 01 November 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=6901, accessed 25 November 2024.]
