Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

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Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman (born October 31, 1852 in Randolph , Massachusetts , † March 13, 1930 in Metuchen , New Jersey ) was an American writer. She was awarded the William Dean Howells Medal by the American Academy of Arts and Letters for her complete work.

Early years

Mary Wilkins Freeman was born in Randolph, the second child of Warren and Eleanor Lothrop Wilkins, and lived most of her life in Massachusetts and Vermont . She came from a wealthy family whose members were Orthodox congregationalists . The strict Calvinist upbringing later influenced Wilkins' works. In 1867, her family was forced to move due to the aftermath of the American Civil War . Her father, actually a carpenter by trade, opened a shop in Battleboro, Vermont, right next to a library, where his daughter soon discovered her love for literature.

After graduating from high school, she attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (now Mount Holyoke College ) from 1870 to 1871 and later graduated from West Brattleboro Seminary . To support her family, who were still in financial need, Wilkins began working as a teacher at a girls' school. But this work, as well as her attempts to earn money as a painter, were unsuccessful. For the Calvinist family, for whom poverty was equated with sin, the financial ruin was particularly difficult to cope with. After the death of her younger sister Anna, Mary Eleanor Wilkins moved with her parents to the home of a wealthy family, where her mother worked as a maid and her father took on janitorial duties. Her unrequited love for Hanson Tyler, the son of the family, would later become a motif in Wilkins' works. After their mother died in 1880, Wilkins and her father were forced to leave the Holmes' family.

Career as a writer

Wilkins started making money writing the children's poem The Beggar King , published in Wide Awake magazine in 1881 . Further publications for children followed until 1882 with The Shadow Family, the first story for adult readers. In Harper's Bazaar , the short story appeared Two Old Lovers , later 'first in Wilkins larger book A Humble Romance and Other Stories was published (1887). In addition to this, it is above all A New England Nun (1891) and Pembroke , published in 1894, that are among Wilkins' major works.

The planned marriage to Dr. Charles Freeman, whom she had met in 1897, postponed it several times. She temporarily lived with a family friend and was plagued by nightmares at night. During this time she developed a dependence on sedatives that she was never supposed to completely overcome. After the marriage took place in 1902, she moved to Metuchen, New Jersey. She continued to write, but living with her alcoholic and drug-addicted husband, whom she later sent to a mental hospital, affected the quality of her novels, which did not match the success of her early short stories. She divorced in 1922 and in his will, Charles Freeman awarded his ex-wife one US dollar before his death in 1923.

Although she did not publish any more works at the time, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman received late honors when she was awarded the William Dean Howells Medal in April 1926 . In November of that year, she was one of four women to be accepted as a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters .

Death and legacy

Freeman's grave in Scotch Plains

Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman died of heart failure on March 13, 1930 in Metuchen, New Jersey, and was buried in Hillside Cemetery on Scotch Plains .

Many autobiographical motifs can be found in her works. They deal with religious upbringing, the independent woman who did not correspond to the role model of her time, as well as unrequited love and the effects of degradation in the course of impoverishment. In 1974, twelve of her ghost stories appeared in Collected Ghost Stories at Arkham House .

Publications (selection)

  • 1887: A Humble Romance and Other Stories
  • 1891: A New England Nun, And Other Stories
  • 1893: Jane Field
  • 1894: Pembroke
  • 1899: Evelina's Garden
  • 1901: The Portion of Labor
  • 1905: The debtor
  • 1907: The Fair Lavinia
  • 1912: The Butterfly House
  • 1918: Edgewater people
  • 1974: Collected Ghost Stories

literature

  • Shirley Marchalonis: Critical Essays on Mary Wilkins Freeman . MacMillan Publishing Company, 1991, ISBN 978-0-8161-7306-8 .
  • Mary R. Reichardt: Mary Wilkins Freeman: A Study of the Short Fiction . Twayne Publishers, 1998, ISBN 978-0-8057-4626-6 .

Web links
personal data
SURNAME Wilkins Freeman, Mary Eleanor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wilkins, Mary Eleanor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH October 31, 1852
PLACE OF BIRTH Randolph
DATE OF DEATH March 13, 1930
Place of death Metuchen