The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Writings (Bantam Classics)

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Paperback, 1989

Status

Available

Publication

Bantam Classics (1989), Edition: Reissue, Reprint, 256 pages

Description

Part of the Gibbs Smith Women's Voices series: A collection of literary voices written by, and for, extraordinary women--to encourage, challenge, and inspire. Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) championed women's rights in her prolific fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Discover three influential works by one of America's first feminists in their unabridged form: the short story The Yellow Wallpaper,a haunting interpretation of postpartum depression; the feminist utopian novel Herland;and Women and Economics,which when published in 1898 established Gilman as a sociologist, philosopher, ethicist, and social critic, and is considered by many to be her greatest work. Continue your journey in the Women's Voices series with Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte (ISBN: 978-1-4236-5099-7), The Feminist Papers,by Mary Wollstonecraft (ISBN: 978-1-4236-5097-3), Hope Is the Thing with Feathers,the complete poems of Emily Dickinson (ISBN: 978-1-4236-5098-0), and Little Women,by Louisa May Alcott (ISBN: 978-1-4236-5211-3).… (more)

Rating

½ (78 ratings; 3.7)

User reviews

LibraryThing member eheleneb3
The Yellow Wallpaper is a 19th-century semi-autobiographical tale of a woman's descent into madness. After suffering from what we now call post-partum depression and what was then called "melancholy" or "melancholia," Charlotte Perkins Gilman's husband took her to see an up-and-coming specialist on
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nervous diseases who had recently invented "The Rest Cure." The rest cure required the patient to spend several weeks or months shut away from family and friends in a quiet, darkened room, making sure she didn't exert herself with any physical or mental pursuits. Additionally, it was suggested that she eat bland food and refrain from using her hands at all. Most of her time was to be spent lying quietly in bed.

Gilman found that rather than curing her of her depression, the treatment severely worsened it. Eventually she decided that the best thing for her was to reengage in normal activity. This successfully cured her condition, and she decided to write the story, embellished with a few exaggerations, to show the dangers of this kind of treatment. Besides being an enthralling read, The Yellow Wallpaper serves as an important social commentary on women, their feelings and emotions, and their place in 19th-century America.
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LibraryThing member Fluffyblue
This is really a novella. It's only about 40 pages, probably not even that long, and only took me an hour or so to read.

It was an interesting and thought provoking book about a womanecent into madness. I thought it was very well written, quite sinister in tone and quite tragic really. I could
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certainly relate to some extent on how the woman thinks there is nothing wrong with her, but everybody else can see that things are not right.
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LibraryThing member londonlady
This short story is a psychologically rich description of a woman's physical and mental confinement. An astounding work of fiction, chilling in many ways.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a great feminist thinker, and author of many books on social architecture, as well as other fiction and non-fiction.
LibraryThing member sadiebooks
a must read for anybody who doesn't like being locked in a room and told to "rest."
LibraryThing member iansales
I knew Gilman’s name chiefly from Herland, an early novel about a feminist utopia, which I own in the Women’s Press SF edition but have yet to read. ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ is perhaps her best known piece of short fiction. The narrator and her husband move into an old house, and the narrator
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becomes obsessed by the wallpaper in an attic room. She is convinced there is someone hidden inside the wallpaper who is desperate to escape and… well, it’s very atmospheric. The other stories, such as ‘If I Were a Man’ or ‘Turned’, are of their time, except for their overt feminist sensibilities. I’ve read early genre fiction by women writers, like Francis Stevens, Agatha Christie, Leslie F Stone, and, of course, CL Moore… but none them seemed to my mind to have as strong a female point of view as the stories in Gilman’s collection. The book also included an except from Herland, and a couple of excerpts from some of Gilman’s non-ficiton writing. I found the book in a charity shop a while ago, and bought it because I knew the name. But now I’m really glad I own a copy of it.
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Language

Original language

English

Physical description

6.9 inches

ISBN

9780553213751
Page: 0.5918 seconds