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.

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