The Whole Family: a Novel by Twelve Authors

by William Dean Howells

"The Whole Family: a Novel by Twelve Authors" by William Dean Howells et al. is a collaborative novel serialized in 1907-08. Twelve different authors each wrote a chapter following a New England family disrupted by their daughter's engagement. What began as William Dean Howells's controlled experiment in literary realism spiraled into chaos when Mary E. Wilkins Freeman transformed a quiet spinster aunt into a vibrant, sexually magnetic woman—enraging fellow contributors and derailing the planned narrative in unexpected directions.