FREEMAN, Mary Eleanor Wilkins, American novelist: b. Randolph, Mass., 1862. She was educated at Mount Holyoke Seminary and after some years spent in Brattleboro, Vt., returned in 1883 to Randolph, which remained her home till her marriage to Charles Freeman in January 1902, when she removed to his home in Metuchen, N. J. She came first into notice about 1886 by her extremely faithful delinea tions of certain phases of New England life in her short stories contributed to the magazines; then attempted more sustained work, and pub lished setreral novels, displaying the same char acteristics. Her work steadily gained in popu larity and has been admired by English as well as American critics. A fondness for very short sentences gives it almost a staccato character at times, and while the accuracy of her studies of New England village existence cannot be called into question, her insistence upon the bareness of the life to the exclusion, or almost entire subordination of its happier phases, con veys a not wholly correct impression of the life in its entirety. Her published works include
'The Adventures of Ann' (1886) • 'A Humble Romance and Other Stories' (1887); 'A New England Nun, and Other Stories' (1891) ; 'Young Lucretia' (1892) ; 'Giles Corey, Yeo man,' a drama (1893) • 'Jane Field,' her first novel (1893) ; 'Pembroke' (1894); 'The Long Ann,' with J. E. Chamberlin (1895) ; 'Jerome, a Poor Man' ' • 'Silence and Other Stories); 'The People of Our Neighborhood' ; (Under studies); 'Made ; 'The Love of Parson Lord' ; 'Evelina's Garden' ; 'The Wind in the Rose-Bush' • 'The Givers' (1904) ; • (Doc Gor don) (1906); 'By the Light of the Soul> (1907) ; 'Shoulders of Atlas> (1908) ; 'Win ning Lady> (1909) ; Door' (1910) ; House) and 'Yates Pride> (1912) ; 'Copy Cat and Other Stories> (1914) ' • (The Jamesons, and People of Our Neighborhood' (serially, 1914).