Critique de Booklist
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, along with Kate Chopin and Sarah Orne Jewitt, has been rediscovered by the reading public, and her works--as well as theirs--are now taught in college and high-school classrooms. By a Mount Holyoke College instructor of English, this literary biography of Freeman releases her from the constrictive label of "local colorist," seeing her novels and stories as universal in meaning and significance. Glasser analyzes those aspects of society's definition of women in late-nineteenth-and early-twentieth-century New England that Freeman accepted or rejected, both in her writing and in the way she led her own life, from traditional notions of female sexuality to those concerning women's economic independence. Heavy going for the general reader, but appreciators of serious literature will find ample rewards in this illuminating study. (Reviewed June 1 & 15, 1996)1558490272Brad Hooper
Critique de Choice
Freeman (1852-1930), a local colorist from New England, wrote 250 short stories and 14 novels. In addition to depicting the customs, landscapes, and characters typical of her native region, Freeman's works also celebrate the strength of women to resist patriarchal domination. In this new literary biography, Glasser analyzes Freeman's fiction to reconstruct the meaning of Freeman's life. She relies on earlier biographies by Edward Foster (Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, 1956) and Perry Westbrook (Mary Wilkins Freeman, CH, Jul'68), as well as on Brent L. Kendrick's collection of Freeman's letters, The Infant Sphinx (1985), to demonstrate how Freeman's inner conflicts between marriage and autonomy find expression in her art. This book presents Freeman's life and work from a feminist perspective and explores Freeman's handling of female sexuality and the politics of patriarchy in depth in the novels Pembroke (1894) and Madelon (1896). The author devotes one chapter to looking at Freeman in the context of two women writers of her period and region, Sarah Orne Jewett and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Alongside these women, Glasser writes, Freeman "provides a fascinating middle ground." The volume contains a selected bibliography of Freeman's works and a thorough index. S. M. Nuernberg University of Wisconsin--Oshkosh
