A Mary Wilkins Freeman Reader

'Mary Wilkins Freeman's best stories are subtle, moving, and grounded in extraordinary detail' - Susan Allen Toth. 'Freeman is one of the most interesting and powerful writers of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. This collection includes several of her greatest stories, including "A New England Nun", "A Poetess", "The Revolt of Mother", and "Old Woman Magoun", and will serve as a good introduction to her work' - Josephine Donovan, University of Maine. Mary Wilkins Freeman (1852-1930), born in Randolph, Massachusetts, began to publish stories about New England in the early 1880s. In the following decades, Freeman drew widespread praise for her intimate portraits of women and her realistic depictions of rural New England life. She published short stories, essays, novels, plays, and children's books. Her stories, written in a clear and direct prose, are remarkable for their unpretentious, sympathetic portrayals of the lives of ordinary New Englanders of Freeman's era. Many of the stories depict rebellion against oppressive social and private conditions. Others describe conflicting desires for independence and lasting relationships.
This volume of twenty-eight stories is the first to provide a representative sample of Freeman's finest work, from all phases of her career. It makes plain why Freeman (in the words of editor Mary R. Reichardt) is widely recognized as an important figure 'in the history of American women's fiction...and the development of the American short story'. Mary R. Reichardt is an associate professor of English at the University of St. Thomas. She is the author of "Mary Wilkins Freeman: A Study of the Short Fiction" and "A Web of Relationship: Women in the Short Fiction of Mary Wilkins Freeman" and the editor of "The Uncollected Stories of Mary Wilkins Freeman".