The Last Gift - by Mary E Wilkins Freeman (Paperback)

About the Book

"From the 1880s to her death in 1930, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman commanded a devoted army of readers across the globe with her prolific output of short stories, novels, poetry, plays, children's literature, and more. But there was a certain time of year when her work proved a particular fixture in the pages of newspapers and magazines: from one Christmas to the next, Freeman's extraordinary vision of the season dominated American print culture. In dozens of stories, she both reflected and directed the development of the modern holiday that was taking shape in this period. Christmas trees, stockings, snow, and Santa Clauses abound, all imbued with Freeman's characteristic strengths as a writer-her humor, her pathos, her indelible characters, her ear for dialogue, her experimentation with genre, and her profound understanding of human nature. Until now, however, Freeman's Christmas stories have been largely forgotten and most have gone unreprinted since their first publication over a century ago. Some have been lost entirely. The Last Gift: The Christmas Stories of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman presents for the first time a selection of her best seasonal work. The volume offers readers, enthusiasts, and scholars a greater understanding of both Freeman as a writer and of the literary history of Christmas itself. This remarkable collection reestablishes her as perhaps the greatest American interpreter of the season. Once again, readers can marvel at the way that Freeman found continual inspiration in the theme of Christmas, grappling anew in each story with the emotional and practical meaning of the season as it played out in the lives of her characters. Taken together, these stories serve as an extended, interconnected meditation on a time of year that still brings forth complicated feelings today. Freeman's characters fall in love, exchange gifts, and feast with their families, conventional and otherwise. But they also experience profound want and loneliness, and some find themselves harried by the demands of the season. For those already familiar with Freeman's work, this collection celebrates an often forgotten aspect of her extraordinary art. For those meeting Freeman for the first time, these seasonal gems are a wonderful way to make her acquaintance. Either way, her stories are a profound Christmas gift and a perfect companion for the holidays-Freeman's last gift to us as readers"--

Book Synopsis

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (1852-1930) was one of the most popular American writers at the turn of the twentieth century, and her annual Christmas stories appeared in magazines and periodicals across the globe. Since then, the extraordinary stories that once delighted her legions of fans every festive season have gone largely out of print and unread. Now, for the first time, The Last Gift presents a collection of Freeman's best Christmas writing, introducing these funny, poignant, provocative, and surprisingly timely holiday tales to a new generation of readers.

Review Quotes

"Celebrated in her own time not only as a New England regionalist but also as a writer of popular Christmas stories, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman challenged the genre's sentimental limits by questioning the relationships between charity and obligation, theft and gift, and transgression and redemption which her characters experience at Christmas. As Thomas Ruys Smith argues in his excellent, lively, and comprehensive introduction to these twenty-five stories, some published for the first time since their original appearance, Freeman's unjustly neglected Christmas stories reveal a new understanding both of the genre's significance and of Freeman's career as a professional writer."--Donna Campbell, author of Bitter Tastes: Literary Naturalism and Early Cinema in American Women's Writing

"Finally, a volume that reprints Freeman's Christmas fare. Her seasonal stories are inventive and experimental, emphasizing the emotional and practical complexities of the holiday, with profound implications for gendered labor, class inequality, the building of community, and the pleasures and perils of consumption. The impressive introduction frames the stories within the history of the holiday and Freeman's delight in its intrigue."--Stephanie Palmer, coeditor of New Perspectives on Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: Reading with and against the Grain

"The Last Gift will prove anyone wrong who once said with Mark Twain, 'I hate Xmas stories.' Funny and grave, delicate and ironical, Freeman's Christmas stories talk about old age and queer desires, ecoanxiety and the love of trees, class tension, capitalistic drives, and the beauty of an old child braving it all to have her 'Christmas once.' A gift for all, and for all seasons."--Cécile Roudeau, coeditor of New Perspectives on Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: Reading with and against the Grain

"A lovely and varied collection of Freeman's often-neglected Christmas stories. Smith's lively introduction contextualizes Freeman's portrayal of the holiday season, in all of its complexity, and the domestic tensions that Christmas evoked for nineteenth-century women."--Leah Blatt Glasser, author of In a Closet Hidden: The Life and Work of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

"Thomas Ruys Smith's edition of Freeman's Christmas stories is a revelation! All our presumptions about holiday stories being drenched in sentimentality are demolished by the ways in which Freeman probes the multiple meanings inherent in the acts of giving and receiving gifts and exposes the forms of both solitude and communion inherent in Christmas. This collection transforms our understanding of the season and enhances the literary reputation of this remarkable author."--Alfred Bendixen, executive director of the American Literature Association

About the Author

Thomas Ruys Smith is professor of American literature and culture at the University of East Anglia. He is the author or editor of a number of books, including Deep Water: The Mississippi River in the Age of Mark Twain and Christmas Past: An Anthology of Seasonal Stories from Nineteenth-Century America.