A New England Nun and Other Stories
- Book Review,
by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
Book Description
Considered a "regionalist" writer, like Kate Chopin and fellow New Englander Sarah Orne Jewett, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman began writing at a time in America's history when literature was becoming the first "culture industry," and she found a growing market for her work in popular magazines. This collection shows Freeman's many modes--romantic, gothic, and psychologically symbolic--as well as her use of pathos and sentimentality, of dry reserve, and of humor, satire, and irony. These last are most vividly expressed in The Jamesons, a series of sketches about village life reprinted for the first time since the turn of the century. Also included here are stories that center on questions of women's integrity, courage, and, often, privation; that explore cultural constructions of masculinity; and that dramatize the interconnection of rural New England with modern culture and commerce.
About the Author
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (1852-1930) was born in Randolph, Massachusetts and spent almost half a century in New England. She wrote prolifically throughout her career, publishing numerous stories, thirteen novels, children's books, a play, and poetry. In 1926 she won the Howells Medal for Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and later that year she was one of the first women elected to the membership of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
Sandra A. Zagarell is Professor of English at Oberlin College. She is coeditor of the Penguin Classics edition of The Morgesons by Elizabeth Stoddard.
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