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. The entries display a spiral into psychosis as the writer tried to solve the mystery of the yellow wallpaper.
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. The entries display a spiral into psychosis as the writer tried to solve the mystery of the yellow wallpaper.
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Find The Yellow Wallpaper Charlotte Perkins Gilman in PDF, EPUB, ebook, audiobook, print, or library editions.
Find The Yellow Wallpaper Charlotte Perkins Gilman in PDF, EPUB, ebook, audiobook, print, or library editions.
2 books in catalog
Feminist fiction and social reform literature in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America were profoundly shaped by psychological realism and utopian satire. The short story The Yellow Wallpaper gained lasting prominence for its unsettling depiction of a woman's mental deterioration under patriarchal medical confinement. Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote this semi-autobiographical narrative following her own struggle with severe postpartum depression, directly challenging prevailing Victorian domestic norms and restrictive medical practices.
Born on July 3, 1860, in Hartford, Connecticut, Charlotte Anna Perkins grew up in poverty after her father, Frederick Beecher Perkins, abandoned the family. Her formal schooling was limited and irregular, though she later studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and worked briefly as a commercial artist. In May 1884, she married artist Charles Walter Stetson, and their daughter was born the following year. Following the birth, she suffered from severe postpartum depression. Seeking independence from traditional domestic expectations, she relocated to California in 1888, separated from Stetson, and finalized their divorce in 1894. She later married George Houghton Gilman in 1900.
Throughout her adult life, she worked as a lecturer, writer, editor, and advocate for social reform. In 1898, she published her major nonfiction work, Women and Economics, which argued that true social equity required women to achieve financial independence outside the domestic sphere. From 1909 to 1916, she authored and published the monthly magazine The Forerunner, which contained her serialized fiction, poetry, essays, and social analysis. Facing terminal illness, she died by suicide on August 17, 1935, in Pasadena, California.
Gilman's literary output spans Gothic psychological drama, utopian science fiction, poetry, and social treatises, all linked by a critique of gendered labor division and male dominance. Her prose relies on direct narrative style, satirical subversion, and precise psychological observation to illustrate how patriarchal confinement undermines female autonomy. In works addressing medical treatment, domestic roles, and economic reliance, she systematically analyzed the institutional structures restricting women's self-determination.
2 books in catalog
Feminist fiction and social reform literature in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America were profoundly shaped by psychological realism and utopian satire. The short story The Yellow Wallpaper gained lasting prominence for its unsettling depiction of a woman's mental deterioration under patriarchal medical confinement. Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote this semi-autobiographical narrative following her own struggle with severe postpartum depression, directly challenging prevailing Victorian domestic norms and restrictive medical practices.
Born on July 3, 1860, in Hartford, Connecticut, Charlotte Anna Perkins grew up in poverty after her father, Frederick Beecher Perkins, abandoned the family. Her formal schooling was limited and irregular, though she later studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and worked briefly as a commercial artist. In May 1884, she married artist Charles Walter Stetson, and their daughter was born the following year. Following the birth, she suffered from severe postpartum depression. Seeking independence from traditional domestic expectations, she relocated to California in 1888, separated from Stetson, and finalized their divorce in 1894. She later married George Houghton Gilman in 1900.
Throughout her adult life, she worked as a lecturer, writer, editor, and advocate for social reform. In 1898, she published her major nonfiction work, Women and Economics, which argued that true social equity required women to achieve financial independence outside the domestic sphere. From 1909 to 1916, she authored and published the monthly magazine The Forerunner, which contained her serialized fiction, poetry, essays, and social analysis. Facing terminal illness, she died by suicide on August 17, 1935, in Pasadena, California.
Gilman's literary output spans Gothic psychological drama, utopian science fiction, poetry, and social treatises, all linked by a critique of gendered labor division and male dominance. Her prose relies on direct narrative style, satirical subversion, and precise psychological observation to illustrate how patriarchal confinement undermines female autonomy. In works addressing medical treatment, domestic roles, and economic reliance, she systematically analyzed the institutional structures restricting women's self-determination.
Penn State Series in the History of the Book
Penn State Series in the History of the Book
