Publisher's Synopsis
"Edgewater People, is a collection of twelve short stories by Mrs. Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. No modern writer has Mrs. Freeman's keen insight into life as it drags its slow course in the New England rural township, and at her best she may not unjustly be compared with Hawthorne. "The Outside of the House" is probably the best of these stories, but none of them can be ranked with what Mrs. Freeman has hitherto done in her chosen field."
-America, Volume 20 [1919]
"Barr Center, South Barr, Barr-by-the-Sea-- the motorist in New England invariably asks why Center, North, South, etc., fragments which put together might make one perfectly good town-and Leicester are four villages upon which the Edgewaters, the Sylvesters and the Leicesters leave their impress. How they do it is entertainingly shown in these dozen tales of the 'little nothingnesses' that make up life. They are all neighborhood tales and continue the same characters from one story to the next. Sarah Edgewater is one of the best drawn types. In her youth her lover was snatched away from her by an unscrupulous sister. The renunciation of the stronger, her loneliness and final shouldering of her unhappy sister's burdens show the stuff of which New England women are made."
-Book Review Digest, Volume 14 [1919]
