Meadow Brook

Meadow Brook opens on a New England childhood shaped by meadows, woods, and the beloved brook that gives the novel its name. Through Rosa Lee, a sensitive, imaginative girl, Mary J. Holmes blends nostalgic rural life with painful coming-of-age struggles: school humiliations, family scoldings, a desperate fantasy of dying to win love, and the awakening resolve to earn admiration through character and achievement. When illness strikes, the household is drawn into fear, tenderness, and grief, culminating in Rosa's near-fatal fever, her mother's silent devotion, and the devastating loss of baby Jamie, which leaves her newly aware of love, loss, and providence. The novel's later scenes widen into a warm but uneasy family chronicle of Thanksgiving returns, old-home memories, and comic tensions over fashionable relatives, while also introducing a more gothic atmosphere in the old house by the lake. There, domestic joy and shadow meet as Herbert's wife Anna bears a son, even as Herbert's hidden drinking threatens their marriage and future. With a haunted room, stormy nights, and the ominous promise of "The Dark Man," the story moves toward deeper secrets and mounting emotional darkness. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.