Madeline Wynne

Madeline Yale Wynne (1847–1918) was an American writer and craftswoman whose best-known work sits at the meeting point of domestic fiction and the supernatural. Her story “The Little Room,” first published in the 1890s, builds unease around an ordinary room and the people who encounter it—a quiet, intimate approach to the uncanny rather than a tale driven by spectacle. Wynne is often associated with New England, and her fiction draws much of its atmosphere from familiar homes and everyday surroundings.

“The Little Room” is the title story of her collection The Little Room and Other Stories. It is a useful starting point for listeners interested in ghost stories that make the familiar feel uncertain. Wynne’s writing favors suggestion and close attention to place: a room, its furnishings, and the impressions it leaves can matter as much as any overtly supernatural event. Her work is less widely read today than that of some of her contemporaries, but the story’s restrained handling of mystery gives it a distinctive place in American supernatural fiction. Explore the titles available here to discover Wynne’s particular kind of quiet unease.