The Butterfly House

by Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

With illustrations by Paul Julien Meylan

Genres: Classics

164 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1912

About the author

Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman was born in Randolph, Massachusetts, and attended Mount Holyoke College (then, Mount Holyoke Female Seminary) in South Hadley, Massachusetts, for one year, from 1870–71. Freeman's parents were orthodox Congregationalists, causing her to have a very strict childhood.

Religious constraints play a key role in some of her works. She later finished her education at West Brattleboro Seminary. She passed the greater part of her life in Massachusetts and Vermont.

Freeman began writing stories and verse for children while still a teenager to help support her family and was quickly successful. Her best known work was written in the 1880s and 1890s while she lived in Randolph. She produced more than two dozen volumes of published short stories and novels. She is best known for two collections of stories, A Humble Romance and Other Stories (1887) and A New England Nun and Other Stories (1891). Her stories deal mostly with New England life and are among the best of their kind. Freeman is also remembered for her novel Pembroke (1894), and she contributed a notable chapter to the collaborative novel The Whole Family (1908). In 1902 she married Doctor Charles M. Freeman of Metuchen, New Jersey.

In April 1926, Freeman became the first recipient of the William Dean Howells Medal for Distinction in Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She died in Metuchen and was interred in Hillside Cemetery in Scotch Plains, New Jersey.

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of all the early American women writers to lose cache in the twentieth century, Freeman astonishes me the most. She writes exactingly if not sharply about women's lives and social conventions with the same prowess of psychological examination as James or Woolf. Albeit with less verbiage than the former and less poetry than the latter. The Butterfly House is about mediocrity in everyday and while white as white can be and moral to boot, the book is also less puritanical and certainly more curious than many early writings would have us believe. Its no wonder to me that Freeman sold shiploads of books in her day. She should be taught in every American Lit class and once all those old guys who have tenure and believe in the canon die off or move out, she most certainly will be.

[Alisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not sure why it's called "The Butterfly House."
Takes quite a while to really get into the plot, but it's a short book.
Fairbridge is a town defined, in this story at least, by its women. They meet together regularly in something called The Zenith Club and listen to "improving" lectures, and get a chance to exhibit their own talents in music, writing, etc.
The plot turns around Margaret Edes, a married woman who is sharp and jealous, and Annie Eustace, an innocent and sheltered young girl who has talents no one suspects. Annie has written an anonymous book that has phenomenal success. When Mrs. Edes finds out, trouble ensues. Meanwhile, the local minister is falling in love with Annie.

[Carol · Rating 1 out of 5]

The formula story and the stereotypical female and male characteristics made this book predictable and just not very interesting. Only finished because it was an audio book and I was trapped in the car.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining listening 🎶😮

A will written society novel by Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman that just did not work for me. I would recommend this novel to anyone who wants high New York City society. Enjoy the adventure of reading 👓 or listening 🎶 as I do because of eye damage. 🗽🏰🏢🏦2022