Howe, Mark Antony De Wolfe (1864-1960). American author and editor. Born in Rhode Island and raised in Pennsylvania, Howe earned a BA from Lehigh University and a second BA and an MA in English literature from Harvard University. He worked as assistant editor of the Youth’s Companion from 1888 to 1893 and of the Atlantic Monthly from 1893 to 1895. In 1899 he married Fanny Quincy, daughter of Boston mayor Josiah Quincy, and returned to editorial work on the Youth’s Companion, which he continued until 1923. He became firmly associated with his adopted city, writing and editing books about it and its famous figures, including Memories of a Hostess: A Chronicle of Eminent Friendships Drawn Chiefly from the Diaries of Mrs. James T. Fields (1922), which Cather reviewed for the Atlantic Monthly and which inspired her essay “The House on Charles Street” (1922, later revised and retitled “148 Charles Street” [1936]). Cather corresponded with Howe in 1911 about a biographical essay he submitted for McClure’s Magazine, and they may have corresponded earlier when Cather’s poem “The Night Express” appeared in the Youth’s Companion or met in person at the Boston home Fields shared with Sarah Orne Jewett. As executor of Fields’ literary estate, Howe corresponded with Cather about the disposition of her letters to Fields. He died in Cambridge, MA.

Fields, Annie Adams (1835-1915). Literary hostess, author, and social reformer. At age 20, Annie Adams married James T. Fields, partner in the Boston publishing house of Ticknor & Fields. Both before and after her husband’s death in 1881, Fields often entertained important American, British, and European authors at her home at 148 Charles Street in Boston, MA. After James’ death, Sarah Orne Jewett, whose books were published by Ticknor & Fields, began sharing Annie’s homes at 148 Charles Street and Manchester-on-the-Sea, MA. Cather met Fields in Boston in 1908, a meeting Cather described in "The House on Charles Street," an essay reviewing Memories of a Hostess (a volume of selections from Fields' journals, 1922). A revised version of this essay, retitled "148 Charles Street," appeared in Not Under Forty (1936). After Jewett’s death in 1909, Fields edited The Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett (1911), which included several letters to Cather. Fearing that 148 Charles Street would become a museum after her death, Fields requested that it be torn down.