Audio book descriptionUp until recently, Freeman has been known primarily as a "feminist" writer, for her classic stories like "A New England Nun" and "The Revolt of Mother". However, she also wrote many well-crafted supernatural stories which have only recently begun to attract appreciative critical attention. These stories combine pragmatism and supernaturalism and are very much in the tradition of an "Americanized" Gothic. Freeman also used the ghost story as a means of examining, indirectly, the pressures which often silenced or devalued women and their concerns. This collection contains six significant New England ghost stories which contain buried comments on the life of women at the turn of the century. The stories included are: "The Wind in the Rose Bush" "The Shadows on the Wall" "Luella Miller" "The Southwest Chamber" "The Vacant Lot" "The Lost Ghost"…
Audio book descriptionWhen young Mattie Silver arrives at her cousin Zeena Frome's farm in the New England village of Starkfield, no one could have imagined the tale of sublime and thwarted passion which ensues. Starkfield, like so many New England village communities, is a place where the emotional terrain resembles the physical: stony, hard, and snow covered much of the year. Ethan Frome - "the most striking figure in Starkfield" - ekes out a bleak living from his ungenerous farm, until Mattie brings love and a dream of escape. The powerful sway of obligation and duty and Ethan's inherent dignity make this novel a great American tragedy.
Audio book descriptionSarah Orne Jewett's fiction depicts, with humor and dignity, the lives and values of the people of New England before the turn of the century. This unabridged collection of 4 of her best stories, beautifully performed in the dialect of southern Maine by Tana Hicken, presents the spirit and the humor of a place and an era long past. "Martha's Lady" is the wonderful story of the bond that develops between 2 young women - one a visiting cousin, the other an awkward and newly-employed maid. In "Aunt Cynthy Dallett, " 2 old friends reminisce on their way up the hill to visit Aunt Cynthy. "The Hilton's Holiday" tells the story of 2 young girls' first trip to town with their father, and in "The Only Rose, " a woman must decide which of her 3 deceased husbands' graves is to have a rose.
Audio book descriptionFrom John Updike to Sarah Orne Jewett to James Thurber, New England has been home and muse to many of America's finest writers. Stories of New England: Then and Now gathers 12 classic pieces that span the generations, painting a distinctive portrait of the last 2 centuries of the historic region and its people. In addition to Updike, Jewett, and Thurber, this one-of-a-kind collection includes short stories by Susan Glaspell, H.P. Lovecraft, Rebecca Cummings, Howard Frank Mosher, Rebecca Rule, Susan M. Dodd, Rowland E. Robinson, Mary Wilkins Freeman, and Lawrence Sargent Hall. All of these authors lend their unique talents and perspectives to this varied, ambitious compendium of great New England fiction.
