The Uncollected Stories of Mary Wilkins Freeman

Publisher Marketing: Few who appreciate the heritage of the short story would question Mary Wilkins Freeman's important position in turn-of-the-century American fiction or her major contributions to the development of the short story form. Freeman (1852-1930), one of the first women elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters (1927), was a regional writer who excelled in the careful delineation of local characters and customs and in exact transcription of indigenous dialect. She also is noted for her contribution to modern psychological literature. This volume brings together for the first time twenty of the best of her "lost" tales. It contributes to the growing reevaluation of this exceptional author of such often anthologized stories as "The 'Revolt' of Mother" and "A New England Nun." The stories in this volume are chronologically arranged. They reveal both familiar and new terrain. Freeman once again delves into the inner lives of New England women. Yet, unlike many of her well-known stories, in these there are new moods and experiments. Four stories involve male protagonists. Three are mystery stories. Three are tales of women artists. Two illustrate Freeman's attempt in her later fiction to incorporate "modern" themes. A prolific writer, Freeman published nearly two-hundred-fifty short stories during her lifetime. Almost a hundred of those stories, however, were not collected. For more than half a century they have remained virtually inaccessible. This volume brings together twenty of the best of Freeman's uncollected stories from such magazines as "Century, Collier's, Harper's Monthly, Good Housekeeping, The Golden Book, Woman's Home Companion, Independent, " and "Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly." This collection restores significant works to the treasury of American literature. Mary R. Reichardt is a professor of English at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Contributor Bio:  Reichardt, Mary R Mary R. Reichardt is Professor of Catholic Studies at the University of Saint Thomas in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She received a Ph. D. in literature from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She has published eight books, including Catholic Women Writers, Exploring Catholic Literature, Encyclopedia of Catholic Literature, and Between Human and Divine: The Catholic Vision in Catholic Literature. Contributor Bio:  Freeman, Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman was born in Randolph, Massachusetts and at fifteen moved with her family to Brattleboro, Vermont. In 1884, left without any immediate family, she returned to Randolph, where she lived for almost twenty years with her childhood friend Mary Wales. She began to write seriously in the 1970s, & in the early 1880s her work began to appear in such popular magazines as Harper's Bazar and Harper's Monthly Magazine. At forty-nine Mary E. Wilkins married Charles Manning Freeman, a New Jersey physician, and moved to Metuchen. Thereafter she wrote under the name Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. In April 1926, she received the William Dean Howells Medal for Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; later that year she was among the 1st women to be elected to membership in the Natl. Inst. of Art & Letters