Two Friends

by Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1887

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

[Thomas Marin · Rating 5 out of 5]

*crying

[alba · Rating 4 out of 5]

the real historians will call them close friends, bеsties, roommates and anything but lovers. like they're practically married. i loved the ending!!

read on this collection
«Amigas». Relatos de amor entre mujeres, del siglo XVIII al XX

[Laila · Rating 4 out of 5]

Had me a little nervous but it was sweet and almost made me tear up :(

[nini]

“There had always been a settled and amicable division of labor between the two women. Abby did the rough work, the man's work of the establishment, and Sarah, with her little, slim, nervous frame, the woman's work. All the dressmaking and millinery was Sarah's department, all the cooking, all the tidying and furbishing of the house. Abby rose first in the morning and made the fire, and she pumped the water and brought the tubs for the washing. Abby carried the purse, too. The two had literally one between them—one worn black leather wallet. When they went to the village store, if Sarah made the purchase, Abby drew forth the money to pay the bill.”

“Two Friends” was first published in a women’s magazine in 1887 and, most likely due to its subject matter, it went uncredited to Mary E. Wilkins Freeman for more than a century. Indeed, the short story focuses on the relationship between Abby (written to the author’s own image and likeness) and Sarah and it displays themes typical of stories concerning romantic love.
"Two Friends" illuminates a time and place in which lifelong partnerships between women were lived publicly with community acceptance—before the establishment of the lesbian as a public social category; something that brought about a revisionism of same-sex friendships and relationships as predatory (Phyllis Betz, 2011). This acceptance is showcased by the emotional and sweet resolution of the story, which prizes the strength of the connection between two women who have spent their lives loving each other in a lifelong bond. I usually do not rate pre-WWII texts, but I feel compelled to express that, if I did, this story would be a solid five star for its invaluable importance and beautiful intensity, liveliness and delicate resolution.

To this day, “Two Friends” is very difficult to get ahold of—especially since it has yet to appear on an official collection of Wilkinson Freeman’s infamous short stories—still, it is readily accessible to all those who posses a j-stor account and are eligible to retrieve Susan Koppelman’s article “About “Two Friends” and Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman”. Said piece not only provides insights on the historical context of this story and the author’s life (whose queer experiences have long been erased by biographers), but it also makes the entire story available just as it was published on Harper’s Bazar in 1887. Otherwise, one might find this work—alongside Wilkins’ other lesbian story “The Long Arm”—in Koppelman’s 1994 collection “Two Friends and Other 19th-century American Lesbian Stories”.

[Olivia 𝄞 · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is my touchstone piece for this semester so yes I do have a lot to say about it

[gianna 🫂 · Rating 3 out of 5]

and they were roommates….

[may💐 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really sweet - albeit rather sad - story of genuine love between two women. The very ending was so perfect.

[izzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

read for class, lesbians!!!