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Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman

MRS. MARY ELEANOR WILKINS-FREEMAN is a direct descendant of the Puritans. In her was born an understanding of old New England, its quaint and lovable people and their ways. She spent her childhood and youth in Randolph, the place of her birth (January 7, 1862), and in Brattleboro, Vermont. So she knew her New England characters through intimate contact during many years. Wide reading and keen observation were most important factors in Mary Wilkins's early education, although she took a course at Mr. Holyoke Seminary. Nevertheless, her first manuscript was so ungrammatical and involved that it was rejected.

The girl writer, however, knew in her heart that she was destined to tell the stories that filled her imagination. Quite undaunted by rejections, she toiled at writing until "The Humble Romance" and "The Revolt of Mother" established her fame. "But," says the first publisher who read her work, "the hard work, the reading, and the study that the little sensitive-faced woman put in must have been stupendous."

Many E. Wilkins-Freeman died March 15, 1930.

These stories, with "A New England Nun and Other Stories" and "Silence and Other Stories," won her distinction as a skilful writer of short stories, rich in suggestiveness and charm. She excelled in sympathetic interpretation and analysis of the wonderful patient life about her. This is true in her novels as well as in her short stories. "Jerome: a Poor Man," "The Jamesons," and "The Portion of Labour" are among those which have been widely read.