Charlotte Stetson Gilman was known as a crusading feminist intellectual, concerned especially with gender inequality within marriage. Most married women of her time had little chance of participating in any creative or professional career - an enforced domestic slavery that was, for Gilman, not only patently unjust, but made neither partner happy or content. In 'Herland', Gilman weaves these themes into an adventure story of three young men, schooled in the then-current view of women as weak and timid creatures. They discover Herland, an all-female society of rationality, equality...

Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 'Herland Trilogy' is widely recognized as a classic of early feminist literature. It recounts the utopian advances made in 'Herland' - a parthenogenetic all-female society isolated from the rest of humanity for 2000 years - and the disruption caused by the arrival of three male American adventurers. 'With Her in Ourland' is the third and final instalment of the saga, and has Herlander Ellador, now married (platonically) to Vandyck Jennings, leaving her home and engaging in a tour of 'Ourland' - the rest of the world. Ellador's calm, logical responses to the...

The first book of the classic feminist 'Herland trilogy', Charlotte Gilman's 'Moving the Mountain' was first published in 1911. It tells the tale of American John Robertson, a native of South Carolina, and student of ancient languages, who at the age of 25 travels to Tibet and, after an unfortunate accident, suffers complete memory loss. Thirty years later, in 1940, he is found by his sister Nellie, recovers his memory and returns to the United States. Much has altered since John left his native shore. Women have become emancipated, and have changed many aspects of society for the better:...

'The Yellow Wallpaper' is a semi-autobiographical short story drawing on Charlotte Gilman's personal experience of mental collapse, exacerbated by the paternalistic attitudes current in her day, a tale which doubles as the perfect vehicle for protesting the unequal status of women in marriage. In 1886, after the birth of her daughter, Gilman was struck with severe post-natal depression. Medical opinion at the time ascribed this condition to too much mental activity for the female mind, and she was prescribed a "rest cure." For an intellectual like Gilman, such forced inactivity was a...

The Yellow Wallpaper (original title: The Yellow Wall-paper. A Story) is a 6,000-word short story by the American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, first published in January 1892 in The New England Magazine. It is regarded as an important early work of American feminist literature, illustrating attitudes in the 19th century toward women's health, both physical and mental.

Presented in the first person, the story is a collection of journal entries written by a woman whose physician husband (John) has rented an old mansion for the summer. Forgoing other rooms in the house,...