Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935)
Author of The Yellow Wallpaper [short story]
About the Author
Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born in 1860 in Hartford, Conn. Her traumatic childhood led to depression and to her eventual suicide. Gilman's father abandoned the family when she was a child and her mother, who was not an affectionate woman, recruited relatives to help raise her children. Among show more these relatives was Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Due to her family situation, Gilman learned independence, but also became alienated from her many female relatives. Gilman married in 1884 and was soon diagnosed with depression. She was prescribed bed rest, which only seemed to aggravate her condition and she eventually divorced her husband, fearing that marriage was partly responsible for her depressed state. After this, Gilman became involved in feminist activities and the writing that made her a major figure in the women's movement. Books such as Women and Economics, written in 1898, are proof of her importance as a feminist. Here she states that only when women learn to be economically independent can true equality be achieved. Her fiction works, particularly The Yellow Wallpaper, are also written with feminist ideals. A frequent lecturer, she also founded the feminist magazine Forerunner in 1909. Gilman, suffering from cancer, chose to end her own life and committed suicide on August 17, 1935. More information about this fascinating figure can be found in her book The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: An Autobiography, published in 1935. (Bowker Author Biography) Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born in 1860 in Hartford, Conn. Her traumatic childhood led to depression and to her eventual suicide. Gilman's father abandoned the family when she was a child and her mother, who was not an affectionate woman, recruited relatives to help raise her children. Among these relatives was Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Due to her family situation, Gilman learned independence, but also became alienated from her many female relatives. Gilman married in 1884 and was soon diagnosed with depression. She was prescribed bed rest, which only seemed to aggravate her condition and she eventually divorced her husband, fearing that marriage was partly responsible for her depressed state. After this, Gilman became involved in feminist activities and the writing that made her a major figure in the women's movement. Books such as Women and Economics, written in 1898, are proof of her importance as a feminist. Here she states that only when women learn to be economically independent can true equality be achieved. Her fiction works, particularly The Yellow Wallpaper, are also written with feminist ideals. A frequent lecturer, she also founded the feminist magazine Forerunner in 1909. Gilman, suffering from cancer, chose to end her own life and committed suicide on August 17, 1935. More information about this fascinating figure can be found in her book The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: An Autobiography, published in 1935. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: From Wikipedia
Series
Works by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Yellow Wallpaper and Selected Writings {Virago Modern Classics} (2009) — Author — 163 copies, 2 reviews
Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and the History of Its Publication and Reception: A Critical Edition and Documentary Casebook (1998) 27 copies, 1 review
"The Yellow Wall-Paper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A Dual-Textbook Critical Edition (2006) 17 copies
Delphi Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman US (Illustrated) (Series Six Book 1) (2015) 14 copies
Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wall-Paper: A Sourcebook and Critical Edition (2004) 13 copies, 1 review
The Wadsworth Casebook Series for Reading, Research and Writing: The Yellow Wallpaper (1998) 9 copies
The Dress of Women: A Critical Introduction to the Symbolism and Sociology of Clothing (2001) 7 copies
The Giant Wistaria 5 copies
Charlotte Perkins Gilman Collection Volume I (Illustrated): The Yellow Wallpaper, Herland and The Man-Made World (2014) 4 copies
Turned 3 copies
The Rocking-Chair 3 copies
O papel de parede amarelo e outros contos (Clássicos da literatura mundial) (Portuguese Edition) (2019) 3 copies
The Yellow Wallpaper {video} 2 copies
Old Water 2 copies
Librivox Ghost Story Collection 005 2 copies
Making a Change {story} 2 copies
Dr. Clair's Place 2 copies
Herland and Other Works by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (Unexpurgated Edition) (Halcyon Classics) (2010) 2 copies
Her Beauty 1 copy
Ev: İşleri ve Etkileri 1 copy
A Mischievous Rudiment 1 copy
Mrs. Elder's Idea 1 copy
[No title] 1 copy
Spoken To 1 copy
世界恐怖小說選 卷二: 曲折詭異的世界名家名作 1 copy
Joan's Defender 1 copy
Mrs. Beazley's Deeds 1 copy
W.S. Maugham - La moglie del Colonnello | Charlotte Perkins Gilman - La carta da parati gialla — Author — 1 copy
The Unexpected 1 copy
Collected Stories 1 copy
My Poor Aunt 1 copy
A Collection of Poems by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (In This Our World, Suffrage Songs and Verses) (2019) 1 copy
'The Yellow Wallpaper'; with 'Woman', Gilman's acclaimed feminist poetry (Aziloth Books) (2015) 1 copy
Three Thanksgivings 1 copy
Her Houskeeper 1 copy
Mr Peeble's Heart 1 copy
The Essential Lectures of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1890–1894 (Studies in American Literary Realism and Naturalism) (2024) 1 copy
Martha's Mother 1 copy
The Boys and the Butter 1 copy
Old Mrs. Crosley 1 copy
Associated Works
Great American Short Stories: From Hawthorne to Hemingway (2004) — Contributor — 679 copies, 2 reviews
Points of View: An Anthology of Short Stories, Revised & Updated Edition (1995) — Contributor — 443 copies, 7 reviews
American Fantastic Tales : Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps (2009) — Contributor — 289 copies, 4 reviews
Daughters of Decadence: Women Writers of the Fin-de-Siècle (1993) — Contributor — 205 copies, 2 reviews
Classic American Short Stories [Barnes & Noble Leatherbound Classics] (2001) — Contributor — 175 copies, 1 review
Four Stories by American Women: Rebecca Harding Davis, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Sarah OrneJewett, Edith Wharton (Penguin Classics) (1990) — Contributor — 137 copies, 1 review
Writing Women's Lives: An Anthology of Autobiographical Narratives by Twentieth-Century American Women Writers (1994) — Contributor — 127 copies, 3 reviews
The Glorious American Essay: One Hundred Essays from Colonial Times to the Present (2020) — Contributor — 119 copies
Weird Women: Classic Supernatural Fiction by Groundbreaking Female Writers: 1852-1923 (2020) — Contributor — 108 copies, 2 reviews
In the Shadow of Edgar Allan Poe: Classic Tales of Horror, 1816-1914 (2015) — Contributor — 107 copies, 3 reviews
H.P. Lovecraft's Book of the Supernatural: 19 Classics of the Macabre, Chosen by the Master of Horror Himself (2006) — Contributor — 100 copies, 2 reviews
Women's Weird: Strange Stories by Women, 1890-1940 (Handheld Classics) (2019) — Contributor — 86 copies, 2 reviews
The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Concise Edition (2003) — Contributor — 73 copies, 1 review
There Is a Graveyard That Dwells in Man: More Strange Fiction and Hallucinatory Tales (2020) — Contributor — 65 copies
The Signet Classic Book of Contemporary American Short Stories (1985) — Contributor — 47 copies, 1 review
The Lifted Veil: The Book of Fantastic Literature by Women 1800-World War II (1806) — Contributor — 45 copies
Spores of Doom: Dank Tales of the Fungal Weird: 59 (British Library Tales of the Weird) (2025) — Contributor — 38 copies, 2 reviews
The Haves and Have Nots: 30 Stories About Money and Class in America (1999) — Contributor — 36 copies
Roads of Destiny: And Other Tales of Alternative Histories and Parallel Realms: 43 (British Library Tales of the Weird) (2023) — Contributor — 33 copies
Ladies of Horror: Two Centuries of Supernatural Stories by the Gentle Sex (1971) — Contributor — 29 copies
The Red Velvet Seat: Women's Writings on the Cinema: The First Fifty Years (2006) — Contributor — 20 copies
A Quaint and Curious Volume: Tales and Poems of the Gothic (2019) — Contributor — 19 copies, 1 review
Creatures of Another Age: Classic Visions of Prehistoric Monsters (2021) — Contributor — 15 copies, 1 review
The Wimbourne Book of Victorian Ghost Stories (Annotated): Volume 11 (2022) — Contributor — 3 copies
The Midnight Inkwell: Sinister Short Stories by Classic Women Writers (2023) — Contributor — 3 copies
LibriVox Short Ghost and Horror Collection 028 — Contributor — 2 copies
Great Classic Horror Stories: Frankenstein, the Signalman Carmilla, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde the Yellow Wallpaper, Dracula (2018) — Contributor — 1 copy, 1 review
10 Classic Feminist Works You Should Read: Little Women, The Yellow Wallpaper, A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman, Sultana's Dream... — Contributor — 1 copy
Tales of Terror: The Monkey's Paw, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Cone, The Yellow Wallpaper (2014) — Contributor — 1 copy
Short Ghost and Horror Collection 026 — Contributor — 1 copy
La nueva mujer: Relatos de escritoras estadounidenses del siglo XIX — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Gilman, Charlotte Perkins
- Legal name
- Gilman, Charlotte Anna Perkins
- Other names
- Stetson, Charlotte Perkins
- Birthdate
- 1860-07-03
- Date of death
- 1935-08-17
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Rhode Island School of Design
- Occupations
- novelist
short story writer
social reformer
magazine editor
public speaker
economist (show all 8)
women's rights activist
suffragist - Organizations
- Pacific Coast Women's Press Association
Ebell Society - Awards and honors
- National Women's Hall of Fame (1994)
- Relationships
- Stowe, Harriet Beecher (great-aunt)
Beecher, Catharine (great-aunt)
Hooker, Isabella Beecher (great-aunt)
Stetson, Charles Walter (1st husband)
Gilman, Houghton (2nd husband) - Short biography
- Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born in Hartford, Connecticut, to Frederick Beecher Perkins and his wife Mary Fitch Westcott.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Catharine Beecher, and Isabella Beecher Hooker, three of the most distinguished 19th-century American writers and women's advocates were her great-aunts of whom she was very proud. Charlotte herself became a noted writer, public speaker, economist, and women's rights and suffrage activist. In 1884, at the age of 24, she married Charles Walter Stetson, an aspiring artist, and the following year gave birth to their daughter. Shortly after the birth, Charlotte suffered a serious bout of what today would be diagnosed as post-partum depression. Her best remembered work today is her semi-autobiographical short story "The Yellow Wallpaper," published in 1892. She also wrote a famous treatise, Women and Economics (1898), in which she said women could never be truly independent until they first had economic freedom. This theme was explored through her lectures, her more than 1,000 nonfiction publications, and her fiction. In 1900, Gilman remarried to her first cousin, George Houghton Gilman. Over the next 25 years, Charlotte also ran her own magazine, The Forerunner, in which many of her stories appeared. An advocate of euthanasia, Gilman ended her life at the age of 75 with an overdose of chloroform. Her work fell into obscurity until it was revived by the women’s movement in the 1960s. In 1994, Charlotte Perkins Gilman was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York. - Cause of death
- suicide
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Hartford, Connecticut, USA
- Places of residence
- Providence, Rhode Island, USA
Pasadena, California, USA
New York, New York, USA
Norwich, Connecticut, USA - Place of death
- Pasadena, California, USA
- Burial location
- cremated
- Map Location
- Connecticut, USA
Members
Discussions
Reading Group #10 ('The Yellow Wallpaper') in Gothic Literature (October 2018)
Reviews
This is a brilliant portrait of a young women's slow and painful descent into madness, as she is being gently nudged along by her husband's suffocating condescension, masqueraded as "love". He was, after all, a physician, so he knew what best she needed to cure herself of the "melancholy" to which she succumbed after the birth of their son. Yes, he knew best.
Physician, heal thyself!
This classic story is available online all over the internet, and can also be found here
Physician, heal thyself!
This classic story is available online all over the internet, and can also be found here
The Yellow Wallpaper And Other Stories: The Yellow Wallpaper; when I Was a Witch; Turned; Making a Change; If I Were a Man (Penguin Classics 60s S.) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Much has been made of the historical significance of this short story and quite frankly, to me it matters not a whit; what does matter is the clarity and lucidity of the prose, in delightful counterpoint to the substance of the tale. The story, after all, leads us into a descent into madness, and very few have described it as eloquently as Gilman.
Ostensibly, we are dealing with madness, of course; but perhaps more importantly we are dealing with the cages that women have lived in for show more centuries -- for eons. To the prison wardens who "decorate" these rooms for women, the cheery yellow wallpaper is an expression of their compassion and humaneness. To the prisoners, the gilded cage is no different than a plain, run-of-the-mill choke chain.
The narrator's obsession is palpable. I felt my tension rising as the story unfolds; I felt my heart beating faster; I felt my breathing coming in choppy gasps. She builds the tension to an exquisite point -- and then throws you off the cliff.
There are many readers who view this as an example of a perfect gothic mystery. Perhaps. I don't buy it, of course, but an argument could be made for that angle.
Whether you read it as a ghost story, a psychological thriller, or a feminist proclamation -- just read it!
Five stars, because goodreads doesn't allow more. show less
Ostensibly, we are dealing with madness, of course; but perhaps more importantly we are dealing with the cages that women have lived in for show more centuries -- for eons. To the prison wardens who "decorate" these rooms for women, the cheery yellow wallpaper is an expression of their compassion and humaneness. To the prisoners, the gilded cage is no different than a plain, run-of-the-mill choke chain.
The narrator's obsession is palpable. I felt my tension rising as the story unfolds; I felt my heart beating faster; I felt my breathing coming in choppy gasps. She builds the tension to an exquisite point -- and then throws you off the cliff.
There are many readers who view this as an example of a perfect gothic mystery. Perhaps. I don't buy it, of course, but an argument could be made for that angle.
Whether you read it as a ghost story, a psychological thriller, or a feminist proclamation -- just read it!
Five stars, because goodreads doesn't allow more. show less
The Yellow Wallpaper And Other Stories: The Yellow Wallpaper; when I Was a Witch; Turned; Making a Change; If I Were a Man (Penguin Classics 60s S.) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Brilliant little novella.
"Women's health was a particularly misunderstood area of medicine, as women were viewed as nervous, hysterical beings, and were discouraged from doing anything to further “upset” them. The prevailing wisdom of the day was that rest would cure hysteria, when in reality the constant boredom and lack of purpose likely worsened depression.
Perkins Gilman used her own experience in her first marriage and postpartum depression as inspiration for The Yellow Wallpaper, show more and illustrates how a woman’s lack of autonomy is detrimental to her mental health.
Upon its publication, Perkins Gilman sent a copy of "The Yellow Wallpaper" to the doctor who prescribed her the rest cure for her postpartum depression." show less
"Women's health was a particularly misunderstood area of medicine, as women were viewed as nervous, hysterical beings, and were discouraged from doing anything to further “upset” them. The prevailing wisdom of the day was that rest would cure hysteria, when in reality the constant boredom and lack of purpose likely worsened depression.
Perkins Gilman used her own experience in her first marriage and postpartum depression as inspiration for The Yellow Wallpaper, show more and illustrates how a woman’s lack of autonomy is detrimental to her mental health.
Upon its publication, Perkins Gilman sent a copy of "The Yellow Wallpaper" to the doctor who prescribed her the rest cure for her postpartum depression." show less
I studied the titular story at school for English literature more than twenty years ago, but hadn't read anything else by Perkins Gilman since. I was aware that her feminism was unfortunately of the eugenicist variety, though, possibly from reading about her interactions with Louise Michel? These seven stories don't show signs of that, although their questioning of gender roles isn't matched by similar questioning of class or racial divides. All the stories feature women (and one man) trying show more to break free from oppressive social expectations.
Although all are well-written, it's clear why The Yellow Paper is the most famous - the wallpaper imagery and mental unravelling are so memorably vivid and unsettling. The other stories are more prosaic in form, although the toll that motherhood can take on mental health comes up again. Another notable difference is that the other stories resolve themselves neatly and positively, seeming almost to be intended as instructive as to the possibilities women could consider for their own liberation. Whereas The Yellow Wallpaper depicts a mental breakdown but no route to recovery. The story's narrator breaks free only by losing her sanity. I wonder what Perkins Gilman herself thought about the popularity of this story in particular? In any case, it was very interesting to re-read it in the context of her other short stories. Perkins Gilman certainly had keen insight into how middle class white American women at the turn of the 20th century could get trapped in bad marriages, financial dependence, and/or the exhaustion of motherhood. The Yellow Wallpaper remains as chilling as I found it decades ago. show less
Although all are well-written, it's clear why The Yellow Paper is the most famous - the wallpaper imagery and mental unravelling are so memorably vivid and unsettling. The other stories are more prosaic in form, although the toll that motherhood can take on mental health comes up again. Another notable difference is that the other stories resolve themselves neatly and positively, seeming almost to be intended as instructive as to the possibilities women could consider for their own liberation. Whereas The Yellow Wallpaper depicts a mental breakdown but no route to recovery. The story's narrator breaks free only by losing her sanity. I wonder what Perkins Gilman herself thought about the popularity of this story in particular? In any case, it was very interesting to re-read it in the context of her other short stories. Perkins Gilman certainly had keen insight into how middle class white American women at the turn of the 20th century could get trapped in bad marriages, financial dependence, and/or the exhaustion of motherhood. The Yellow Wallpaper remains as chilling as I found it decades ago. show less
Lists
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100 Hemskaste (1)
Overdue Podcast (1)
Victorian Period (1)
Awards
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Statistics
- Works
- 142
- Also by
- 103
- Members
- 14,863
- Popularity
- #1,546
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 392
- ISBNs
- 803
- Languages
- 18
- Favorited
- 23
