The Wind in the Rosebush, and Other Stories of the Supernatural

MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN (1852-1930) was best known in her own day as a regional writer, for her stories depicting the bleak life of the New England rural populace of her day. Her best collections in his mode are A HUMBLE ROMANCE AND OTHER STORIES (1887) and A NEW ENGLAND NUN AND OTHER STORIES (1891). She is probably better remembered today for her ghost stories, first collected in THE WIND IN THE ROSE-BUSH AND OTHER STORIES OF THE SUPERNATURAL (1903), which likewise makes use of deftly-observed regional detail. This collection includes her best-known story, "The Shadows On the Wall," which H.P. Lovecraft praised for its "consummate skill" in the depiction of "a staid New England household to uncanny tragedy."