SOURCE: “New England in the Short Story.” Atlantic Monthly 67 (June 1891): 845-50.

In the following essay, an anonymous reviewer for the Atlantic Monthly discusses short story collections by three regional authors from New England: Annie Trumbull Slosson, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, and Sarah Orne Jewett.

There are two periods in the life of a country when the short story is peculiarly adapted to display the characteristics of the people: the first is when the country is virgin soil for the novelist; the second is when the soil, in agricultural phrase, is worn out. At the present time, the South, and more particularly the Southwest, illustrates the former of the two periods, New England the latter. By means of the rapid sketches and brief stories of Miss Murfree, Mr. Cable, Mr. Harris, Mr. Page, Miss French, and others, we have been introduced to a society and a condition of life...