Herland, The Yellow Wall-Paper, and Selected Writings (Penguin Classics)

Book Description

A new collection of fiction and poetry from a major voice in American feminism and literature

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a turn-of-the-century American feminist and socialist thinker. In her works of fiction, Gilman sought to illustrate her ideas about the way American society squandered the talents and economic contributions of women. Based on the nervous breakdown she suffered during her own disastrous first marriage, The Yellow Wall-Paper is her classic story about a woman who goes mad when the rest-cure treatment she undergoes forbids her any kind of work.

Herland, Gilman's most famous novel, is a feminist utopian comedy in which three men stumble upon a society of women that has banished men. Also included in this Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics edition is a selection of Gilman's poetry and other short fiction. Gilman scholar Denise D. Knight has written an enlightening Introduction that explores Gilman's use of the utopian form, satire, and fantasy to provide a critique of women's place in society and to propose creative solutions.

Customer Reviews:

A nice little afternoon read...........2004-12-14

A generally overlooked gem of a utopian novella that makes for a pleasant experience. The treatment is calmer and more down to earth than A Brave New World, and is more thoughtful and meditative than Looking Backward. Gilman's feminism celebrates motherhood above all, and embraces Christianity. In a time when we're reconsidering gender roles and marriage in society, Herland is particularly relevant and insightful.

Highly recommended for the fan of utopian literature and early feminist thought.

The Yellow Wall-paper and Other Stories (Oxford World's Classics)

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A Woman Beyond Her Time

The Yellow Wall-paper and Other Stories (Oxford World's Classics)
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0192834800

Book Description

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was America's leading feminist intellectual of the early twentieth century. The Yellow Wall-Paper and Other Stories makes available the fullest selection of her short fiction ever printed. In addition to her pioneering masterpiece, `The Yellow Wall-Paper' (1890), which draws on her own experience of depression and insanity, this edition features her Impress `story studies', works in the manner of writers such as James, Twain, and Kipling. These stories, together with other fiction from her neglected California period (1890-5), throw new light on Gilman as a practitioner of the art of fiction. In her Forerunner stories she repeatedly explores the situation of `the woman of fifty' and inspires reform by imagining workable solutions to a range of personal and social problems.

Customer Reviews:

A Woman Beyond Her Time.......2004-02-28

The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Short Stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a book truly ahead of it's time. From reading the stories it is apparent that Charlotte was an extreme feminist for the late 1800s. I found it interesting that a woman in the 1800s was so aware of the confinements imposed on women during that time. It was very clear to me that Charlotte Perkins Gilman was on a mission to educate as many woman as she could regarding the inequality of rights for women versus men. The main reason I found this book so intriguing was not because of her writing technique but her strong desire to help women realize that they were more capable than society gave them credit for. She was clearly trying to strengthen herself and other women. I appreciated her writing more for the books contribution to the empowerment of women. It was truly courageous of Charlotte to express as much as she did in her writings since it was uncommon for women to stand up for themselves and their rights. Charlottes writing was motivational and inspired many woman to eventually step out of their "limitations and boundaries" at the time and become more assertive about their rights.

"The Yellow Wall-Paper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A Dual-Textbook Critical Edition

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"The Yellow Wall-Paper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A Dual-Textbook Critical Edition
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Manufacturer: Ohio University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0821416545

Book Description

"This volume offers both Gilman scholars and scholars of textual studies a unique and helpful means of engaging with a work that exists in multiple forms, and includes some insightful new readings of this much-analyzed story," says Charlotte Rich, editor of the Charlotte Perkins Gilman Newsletter. Scholars have argued for decades over which constitutes the best possible version of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's much-anthologized story “The Yellow Wall-Paper.” Most editions have been based on the1892 New England Magazine publication rather than the handwritten manuscript at Radcliffe College. Publication of the unedited manuscript in 1994 sparked controversy over which of the two was definitive. Since then, scholars have discovered half a dozen parent texts for later twentieth-century printings, including William Dean Howells' version from 1920 and the 1933 Golden Book version. While traditional critical editions gather evidence and make an argument for adopting one text as preferable to others, Shawn St. Jean's “The Yellow Wall-Paper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A Dual-Text Critical Edition offers instead both manuscript and magazine, critically edited and printed in parallel for the first time. When viewed as part of a process beginning with writing and ending with bibliographic coding, new significance appears in such facets as the magazine's accompanying illustrations, its lineation and paragraphing, Gilman's choice of minor pronouns, and her original handwritten ending. This critical edition of “The Yellow Wall-Paper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman includes a full and nontraditional apparatus for ease of use by students and scholars to study the more than 400 variants between the two. Four new essays, written especially for this volume, explore the implications of this multitext model. Shawn St.Jean, an independent scholar in Brockport, New York, has previously published on Charlotte Perkins Gilman in Studies in Bibliography, Feminist Studies, and Studies in Short Fiction. He is the author of Pagan Dreiser: Songs from American Mythology.

The Pedagogical Wallpaper: Teaching Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "the Yellow Wall-Paper"

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The Pedagogical Wallpaper: Teaching Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "the Yellow Wall-Paper"

Manufacturer: Peter Lang Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0820463051

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Feminist dribble and inane ramblings
The (yellow) walls are closing in...
The Yellow Wallpaper Review
A Celebrated Chintz
Imaginative tale of a descent into madness

The Yellow Wall-Paper
Charlotte Perkins Gilman , and Elaine Hedges
Manufacturer: Feminist Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1558611584

Book Description

First published in 1892, The Yellow Wall-Paper is written as the secret journal of a woman who, failing to relish the joys of marriage and motherhood, is sentenced to a country rest cure. Though she longs to write, her husband and doctor forbid it, prescribing instead complete passivity. In the involuntary confinement of her bedroom, the hero creates a reality of her own beyond the hypnotic pattern of the faded yellow wallpaper â€“ a pattern that has come to symbolize her own imprisonment. Narrated with superb psychological and dramatic precision, The Yellow Wall-Paper stands out not only for the imaginative authenticity with which it depicts one woman's descent into insanity, but also for the power of its testimony to the importance of freedom and self-empowerment for women.

Suggested for course use in:
Family studies
Feminist thought
History of medicine
19th-century U.S. literature
Psychology

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860 - 1935) was a feminist writer, lecturer, and activist. Her many other works include Herland and Women and Economics.

Customer Reviews:

Feminist dribble and inane ramblings.......2006-03-24

I had the misfortune of having to read this book as part of my A-level studies whilst at school and as many school children in England in the early 1990s will agree it was 'the' worst book to force young minds to read. The main character is so tediously dull that I did have a miniscule amount of empathy for her to end it all, but my desire was based more upon the fact that it would mean the end of the very dull story. It's yellow wallpaper for goodness sakes. Don't read into it that this is something deep and meaningful, because it isn't. If you're like me you won't care about the character's, you'll just wish that you were not reading about them. This is the 19th century version of MTV, you will be left feeling empty, like you just wasted a few hours of your life on something not worthy of it. do yourselves a favour, if you get anything from this book it's this. Write a load of mindless drivel, leave it to some socially challenged critics to make something out of nothing and you'll be on to a winner. In 100 years time kids will be forced to read it in schools and they'll probably hate you for it, but you won't care because you'll be long gone. As should be the case with the book!

The (yellow) walls are closing in..........2006-03-09

I found this story to be both very disturbing and at the same time wonderful in its skill of disturbance. The suspense of what would happen to the narrator was as omnipresent and looming as the wall-paper which surrounded the narrator herself.

The tale contains evidence of the romantic era (a speaker who suffers and a seeming element of the supernatural), but provides even more substance rooted in the realistic realm: excessively fine details, objects that become symbolic (none more clearly prominent than the imprisoning wall-paper itself), and graphic descriptions that provide a sharp edge to the narrator's plight as she succumbs to insanity.

Ingenious clues were also placed through the story, occasionally leading the reader to momentarily doubt his or her own mental dexterity at following the course of events (such as John's sister's name going from Mary to Jennie to Jane).

However, it is the descriptions of the wall-paper itself which give such a vivid and real impact to the story (such as "the sprawling outlines run off in great slanting waves of optic horror, like a lot of wallowing sea-weeds in full chase," or "the outside pattern is a florid arabesque, reminding one of a fungus").

Gilman's assertive style is also noteworthy for the period it precluded: that of the empowerment of women, both in literature and in society.

The Yellow Wallpaper Review.......2005-09-26

The book is a classic. Yet, you need a certain taste for certain types of knowledge. Such as women and gender studies. As well as you certainly need to enjoy reading professional opinions.

A Celebrated Chintz.......2004-07-03

Elaine Hedges provides an excellent and useful introduction to the life and work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman in this affordable, and scrupulously edited, edition of what is now her most famous work. She positions this story in the trajectory of Gilman's wrought personal and effusive literary lives and reveals its importance to late-twentieth-century feminism.
Jason Rosenfeld

Imaginative tale of a descent into madness.......2003-04-16

This short story, based upon the author's own experiences, is a powerful tale of one intelligent woman's struggle with madness, the role of (married) women in society and family in the late 1800s, and how she copes with well-meaning but misguided relatives and their ideas of a woman's nature and abilities. Many consider it an early feminist novel, and I agree, although I would extend the author's message to any group that finds itself severely restricted by society's notions of appropriate behavior, goals, and the nature of the group.
The narrator of the story is, from a modern point of view, a normal, young, married woman who also has a desire to write. However, bound by Victorian mores and restrictions, this desire to write is deemed inappropriate at best and casts questions about her not fulfilling her (only) role as wife (and mother). She was only to focus her attention on "domestic" concerns (house, husband, children) and anything remotely intellectual was considered a threat to her sanity and her physical health. When she refuses to bow to society's (and her husband's) ideas of womanhood, she is confined to a room for COMPLETE rest (meaning NO mental stimulation of any kind, no reading, no writing). What makes matters worse is that her husband (a doctor) is also her jailer, and instead of truly understanding his wife as a human being, opts to follow society's standards instead of doing what is in the best interest of his wife (and her health, both physical and mental). Not surprisingly, she rebels a bit, and continues to write her thoughts in a journal, hiding the journal and pencil from her husband. When her deception is discovered, she is even more strictly confined than before, and denied contact with her children.
It is at this point that she begins her descent into madness--not from the desire to write and express her creativity, but from being denied an outlet for that creativity. She was not mad before she was prescribed complete rest, but rather the complete rest which caused her madness. She begins to imagine things (shapes, objects, animals, people) in the yellow wallpaper which covers the walls of the room to which she is confined. As more restrictions and controls are placed upon her, her imagination grows, until finally she strips the wallpaper to reach the figures, and is found by her husband, surely and completely mad.
I liked this story very much because the author conveyed the kind of dead lives many talented, creative women must have been forced to lead due to society's ideas of women and their abilities while fully backed by the medical profession. She clearly illustrates that in this instance, doctors and husbands do not know best, and that their very best intentions had the precise effect of bringing about the madness that they sought to cure. As I read the story, I wondered why her husband (and the doctor) were so blind as to the causes of her "nervous condition". It obviously was not working, and rather than demonstrating their intelligence by trying something else or, God forbid, asking her what she needed (a couple hours per day to devote to writing, a small thing indeed), continued along the same methods of treatment, only with more restrictions! The social commentary and the commentary on the status of women in society and in their own families is handled in an effective way by the author, not only in her prose but in the development of the characters and the storyline. It is a most persuasive plea of the basic idea of feminism--that women are people too, with talents and abilities outside of their roles as wives and mothers that deserve an opportunity to be developed. In reading this story, I am amazed by how far we as a society have come in changing our views of women, and yet by how much further we have to go. I highly recommend this book.
This book was also made into a show that aired on PBS' Masterpiece Theatre in the late 1980s. I have not been able to find a copy of the program, but remember that it was well-produced and faithful to the story.

Approaches to Teaching Gilman's ""the Yellow Wall-Paper"" and Herland (Approaches to Teaching World Literature)

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Approaches to Teaching Gilman's ""the Yellow Wall-Paper"" and Herland (Approaches to Teaching World Literature)

Manufacturer: Modern Language Association of America
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0873529006

The Yellow Wall-Paper: A Sourcebook and Critical Edition

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Perfect for research

The Yellow Wall-Paper: A Sourcebook and Critical Edition
C. Golden
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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A Glossary of Literary Terms

ASIN: 0415263581

Book Description

In 1892, Charlotte Perkins Gilman published her landmark work, The Yellow Wall-Paper, generating spirited debates in literary and political circles on both sides of the Atlantic. Today this story of a young wife and mother succumbing to madness is hailed both as a feminist classic and a key text in the American literary canon.

This sourcebook combines extracts from contemporary documents and critical reviews with incisive commentary, providing:

*an introduction to the political, biographical and medical contexts in which Gilman was writing
*a publishing and critical history of the work with extracts from the earliest reviews through to recent criticism
*a chronology of key biographical and contextual events
*an annotated guide to further reading
*original illustrations and photographs of the author and figures related to the story.

Filled with extensive commentary, as well as contextual and critical materials, this reprint of the complete original text-as published in the New England Magazine in 1892-constitutes an important critical edition.

Customer Reviews:

Perfect for research.......2007-04-18

If you are doing research on "The Yellow Wall-Paper" this book is essential. It provides a great amount of context for the piece as well as lots of criticism and interpretation. Of the 20 or so books that I used for research, this was by far the best one. Well worth the investment.

The Yellow Wall-Paper: And the History of Its Publication and Reception (The Penn State Series in the History of the Book)

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Authoritative

The Yellow Wall-Paper: And the History of Its Publication and Reception (The Penn State Series in the History of the Book)
Charlotte Perkins Gilman , and Julie Bates Dock
Manufacturer: Pennsylvania State University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0271017341

Customer Reviews:

Authoritative.......2000-10-04

This slender casebook of an academic search represents the first authoritative text of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wall-Paper since it was originally published in 1892. It includes book reviews and excerpts of literary and social commentaries that reflect the story's critical reception; it publishes lists of editorial emendations and variants of the story in important editions since 1892 and it gives a listing of textual sources for more than one hundred reprintings of the story in anthologies and textbooks.

The enterprise, itself, deserves recognition for its prodigious and painstaking scholarship and meticulous editing. A product of an undergraduate course on scholarly editing, Julie Bates Dock gave her class a "simple collation exercise" on Gilman's The Yellow Wall-Paper. Students and teacher alike became more and more enthused as they searched for relationships among various editions of the story. This enthusiasm resulted in a collaborative publication by Julie Bates Dock and three of her students.

In a chapter entitled The Legend of The Yellow Wall-Paper, Dock not only recounts how the story has become one of literature's perennial bestsellers, but also warn us that "in its twenty-five-year odyssey of rediscovery by literary critics...the story has picked up along the way an assortment of blemishes and distortions, from textual anomalies to skewed accounts of its publication history to misinformation about its contemporary reception." This should be enough to make any academic want to research its history.

The evidence of casual distortions that change the import of original texts as shown in the present case emphasizes the importance of textual criticism and traditional modes of criticism. Dock says, "...the use of documents is affected by critical trends and by critics' biases and expectations...The feminist critics of the early 1970s, intent on establishing women authors in the American literary canon, had a stake in portraying the story as a victimized piece of literature. The notion that Gilman suffered condemnation from editors and readers outside the story tidily echoed the narrator's victimization within the story." Dock then goes on to cite two examples where major feminist critics came to unexamined and hasty conclusions about the publication of the story.

Dock also provides evidence to argue that omission of a few words distorts Gilman's focus. For example, the words, "in marriage," in the sentence, "John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that (in marriage)." Gilman was against the institution of marriage, but not necessarily against men in general!

Legends that Gilman had to struggle to get her story published, that most readers thought of it as a "ghost story," that it received an especially distasteful reception from the male medical community are also put to rest, as evidence simply does not support these beliefs.

Dock also points out discrepancies in Gioman's own accounts as well, such as her inaccurate and varying dates and titles as well as her claim that Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell, her own physician, altered his treatment of neurasthenia after reading The Yellow Wall-Paper. This is, as Dock points out, a case of "he says/she says conundrums."

The book is wonderfully embellished with photographs of Charlotte Perkins Stetson, W.D. Howells, Horace E. Scudder and Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell, as well as with other visuals.

The book also cites interesting excerpts from Gilman's autobiography, The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Correspondence. It explains or compiles painstaking commentaries on textual matters, selection of copy, publication history, authorial practice and preference, editorial emendations and many other publication matters as well as reviews of the story which appeared in various magazines. The Appendix provides a history of the printing of The Yellow Wall-Paper from 1892 until 1997.

Book Description

"There is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. Might as well speak of a female liver."--Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935), a leading figure in the women's movement of the early twentieth century, is a pillar of the American feminist canon. This edition of her work includes her best-known story, "The Yellow Wall-paper," a terrifying tale about a woman driven to the brink of insanity by the "rest cure" she is ordered to follow by her doctor to relieve her postpartum depression. Also included is a wide range of other short stories; an abridged version of her little-known but brilliant utopian novel, Herland, about a peaceful all-female world; and selections from her landmark treatise, Women and Economics, first published in 1898 to universal acclaim.

Customer Reviews:

Repetitive Feminism.......2001-12-15

Charlotte Perkins Gilman stands out as a feminist. She is known for her short stories, but is also wrote a novel, Herland, and a couple articles on women in society during the late 1800's. Her short stories are not all based on feminism, but rather life lessons. Her novel is creative but unrealistic. Her articles, "women and Economics" and "The Man Made World" are very repetitive. She expresses the same views with every point she is trying to make: the point being that men dominate almost every aspect of life, politics, marriage, money, society, and family life.
Her fiction is enjoyable reading. It not only could appeal to women but also men, because it does not focus only on feminist views. She expresses ideas on life that men and women share. There is always a clear image of what is going on in the story.
Her articles are very bitter, and her arguments are based on the same idea, that men rule and it is unfair to think that women are incapable of what men do. She talks mostly of what women don't do, and nothing of what women are able to do. Reading one section of both of her articles put together is like reading the whole thing. Young women today may find it hard to relate to her views, because things have changed drastically from 1890 to today.
As a feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman was outspoken and strong with her one view. If there is an interest in Gilman, read her novel or short stories. They are much more interesting then her repetitive feminist articles.

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The Yellow Wall Paper
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Manufacturer: Kessinger Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1419189050

Book Description

The "rest cure" was prescribed to Gilman by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, author of the Autobiography of a Quack.

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The "rest cure" was prescribed to Gilman by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, author of the Autobiography of a Quack.

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