The Yellow Wall-Paper (Unabridged with Original Illustrations)

An unnamed woman in 1892 keeps a secret journal. It is in these pages that she details her stay in the manor where she and her husband are resigned to spending the summer, and describes the small attic nursery papered with hideous yellow wallpaper they’ve claimed as their own. Her husband is a physician and has deemed her to be of sound mind—but if that is the case, why does she see a woman staring back at her from inside the wallpaper?“If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency—what is one to do?”---Originally published in New England Magazine in 1891, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s (then Stetson’s) publication, “The Yellow Wall-Paper”, exposed the dark side to being a woman and wife in the 1800’s. An original feminist, Charlotte didn’t write for the men who ignored or condemned her throughout her life, but for her fellow women, who to this day hear her loud and clear. The Yellow Wall-Paper was a revolutionary piece of classic feminist writing that far surpassed even Charlotte’s expectations of success. It’s message still rings true for many women today.

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