Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman (1852–1930) was a well-known nineteenth-century author. Born in Massachusetts, Freeman focused many of her stories on New England and its residents. In 1926, she won the first William Dean Howells Gold Medal for Fiction and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her works include A Humble Romance and Other Stories (1887), A New England Nun and Other Stories (1891), and Pembroke (1894).