Since its publication in 1892, Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wall-paper" has always been recognized as a powerful statement about the victimization of a woman whose neurasthenic condition is completely misdiagnosed, mistreated, and misunderstood, leaving her to face insanity alone, as a prisoner in her own bedroom. Never before, however, has the story itself been portrayed as victimized.

In this first critical edition of Gilman's "The Yellow Wall-paper," accompanied by contemporary reviews and previously unpublished letters, Julie Bates Dock examines the various myth-frames...

Two works in one, this volume contains the full text of With Her in Ourland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, as well as an illuminating sociological analysis by Mary Jo Deegan with the assistance of Michael R. Hill. Ourland is the sequel to Gilman's acclaimed feminist utopian novel Herland; both were published in her journal, The Forerunner, in 1915 and 1916. Ourland resumes the adventures of DEGREESIHerland DEGREESR's protagonists, Ellador and Van, but turns from utopian fantasy to a challenging analysis of contemporary social fissures in his land, or...

First serialized in 1914, "Social Ethics" attempts to convince readers that individualist ethics have failed to make the world a safe place for children, and that we cannot progress to a fully social ethics unless we understand the morality of collective action from a specifically sociological point of view. Gilman argues that in order to be fully progressive, ethics must shift from its traditional focus on individual behaviors to the structure, morality, and outcomes of social or group actions. The social ills she addresses in her attempt to advocate for a reexamination of our ethics...

Two works in one, this volume contains the full text of "With Her in Ourland" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, as well as an illuminating sociological analysis by Mary Jo Deegan with the assistance of Michael R. Hill. "Ourland" is the sequel to Gilman's acclaimed feminist utopian novel "Herland"; both were published in her journal, "The Forerunner," in 1915 and 1916. "Ourland" resumes the adventures of DEGREESIHerland DEGREESR's protagonists, Ellador and Van, but turns from utopian fantasy to a challenging analysis of contemporary social fissures in "his land," or the real world. The...

Originally serialized in 1915 in "The Forerunner," and never before published in book form, "The Dress of Women" presents Gilman's feminist sociological analysis of clothing in modern society. Gilman explores the social and functional basis for clothing, excavates the symbolic role of women's clothing in patriarchal societies, and, among other things, explicates the aesthetic and economic principles of socially responsible clothing design. The introduction, by Hill and Deegan, situates "The Dress of Women" within Gilman's intellectual work as a sociologist, and relates her sociological...

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...