Mary Wilkins Freeman (1852-1930), born in Randolph, Massachusetts, began to publish stories about New England in the early 1880s. In the following decades, Freeman drew widespread praise for her intimate portraits of women and her realistic depictions of rural New England life. She published short...

Mary Wilkins Freeman (1852-1930), born in Randolph, Massachusetts, began to publish stories about New England in the early 1880s. In the following decades, Freeman drew widespread praise for her intimate portraits of women and her realistic depictions of rural New England life. She published short stories, essays, novels, plays, and children's books. Her stories, written in a clear and direct prose, are remarkable for their unpretentious, sympathetic portrayals of the lives of ordinary New Englanders of Freeman's era. Many of the stories depict rebellion against oppressive social and private conditions. Others describe conflicting desires for independence and lasting relationships. This volume of twenty-eight stories is the first to provide a representative sample of Freeman's finest work, from all phases of her career.

In this rich, exciting new book, Gregg Camfield explores nineteenth-century American humor from the perspective of gender and domestic ideology, challenging recent theory asserting a broad gulf between men's and women's humor during the period and contributing vital new insights to the study of...

In this rich, exciting new book, Gregg Camfield explores nineteenth-century American humor from the perspective of gender and domestic ideology, challenging recent theory asserting a broad gulf between men's and women's humor during the period and contributing vital new insights to the study of humor in general. Capturing in part I a vision of humor unique to the era, Camfield examines the period's faith in what was called "amiable humor," a genial and supple comic mode whose non- aggression makes it resist easy assimilation to theories stressing humor's basis in hostility, negation, rage, and other combative or displaced energies. Seeking to illuminate this distinct comedy, Camfield probes a related, central cultural strand--the domesticity ideal--that so often is a subject of this humor, carefully tracking contact between the two discourses and identifying their common social and intellectual roots. Turning next to four literary case-studies powerfully revealing of this contact, Camfield in part II pairs male and female humorists--Washington Irving and Fanny Fern; Harriet Beecher Stowe and Herman Melville; Mark Twain and Marietta Holley; and George Washington Harris and Mary Wilkins Freeman--not only to demonstrate the way these influential writers approach domesticity with genial humor, but also to support his claim that gender difference does not always correlate to differences in viewpoint and practice within this common style. Where many argue nineteenth- century women's humor constitutes a genre unto itself, Camfield finds that like women, men filtered reaction to the constraints and opportunities of home life through genial comedy, and that women, like their male counterparts, wrote humor marked by extravagance, expansion, caricature, fantasy, and posturing. Broadening out to an intriguing consideration of humor theory in part III, Camfield draws on recent work in psychology, culture studies, neo-pragmatist philosophy, and neuroscience to model a compelling alternative view of humor capable of negotiating both the complexities of nineteenth-century American humor and the comic art of periods before and since. Students and scholars of humor, nineteenth-century American literature and culture, and women's writing, will find Necessary Madness to be a provocative, essential achievement.

As the American literary canon has undergone revision and expansion in recent years, the influence of women writers of the nineteenth century has been reevaluated. The first book of its kind, this reference provides alphabetically arranged entries for more than 70 nineteenth-century American women...

As the American literary canon has undergone revision and expansion in recent years, the influence of women writers of the nineteenth century has been reevaluated. The first book of its kind, this reference provides alphabetically arranged entries for more than 70 nineteenth-century American women writers, such as Louisa May Alcott, Margaret Fuller, Emma Lazarus, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and includes a biography, a discussion of the author's major works and themes, an overview of the critical studies examining the writer's works, and a bibliography of works for further consultation.