Freeman, Mary E(leanor) (1852–1930)

US novelist, short-story writer and dramatist. Born in Randolph, Massachusetts, she became known in particular for fiction that depicts the everyday life of rural New England, her writing noted for its realism and sensitive characterization. She wrote prolifically, and is now best remembered for her short-story collections, in particular A New England Nun and Other Stories 1891, and her play Giles Corey, Yeoman 1893, about the Salem witch trials.

By the mid-1880s she had lost her parents and her only sister and so had to start writing to earn a living. Her stories, which were published by Harper's Bazaar, became very successful, and her first collection A Humble Romance appeared in 1887. It was followed by A New England Nun and Other Stories, her most important collection. Typically, her stories depict obscure lives marked by failure or narrow social conventions – like Nathaniel Hawthorne, she saw her characters as struggling with the spiritual and psychological heritage of the New England Puritans. An important late collection was Edgewater People 1918.

Among her best novels are Pembroke 1894, Jerome, a Poor Man 1897, and The Shoulders of Atlas 1908. In 1926 she was awarded the William Dean Howells medal for fiction by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.