MIDDLEBORO — The Friends of the Middleboro Public Library hosted a fund-raising historical interpretation and high tea Sunday, Dec. 4 to celebrate the holiday season.

The two-part program included a performance by Judith Kalaora, an award-winning playwright, and internationally renowned historical interpreter followed by high tea. 

Attendees were welcomed into the Waterside Museum, the home of Annie Adams Fields, often referred to as the “Victorian Gossip Girl.’’ Adams, who had incredible influence on literary decisions at Ticknor & Fields Publishing House (the forerunner to Houghton Mifflin) counted among her friends Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Charles Dickens, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

She shared her experience with Victorian revelry at the height of Transcendentalism, along with a nation’s despair, during the onslaught of the Civil War. She offered her guests intimate secrets and extraordinary observations, including her years with Sarah Orne Jewett in a Boston Marriage. 

The consummate hostess, she had her guests laughing, and blushing as they listened to the tantalizing tales of this preeminent literary scout and accomplished writer.

Following the performance, attendees moved to the historic 1903 section of the Middleboro Public Library where they were served a four-course high tea consisting of soup, scones, tea sandwiches, and sweets. When the holiday celebration came to a close, each guest was given an raspberry cheesecake to take home as a sweet remembrance of the event.

The Friends of the Middleborough Public Library raise funds that supplement the library’s operating budget.