Showing results by author "Charlotte Perkins" in All Categories

Enduring stories that are as relevant today as they were when written at the turn of the century by influential women writers. This audio recording includes: "On the Divide" and "The Garden Lodge" by Willa Cather; "A Point at Issue", "Desiree's Baby", "A Pair of Silk Stockings", and "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin; "Three Thanksgivings" and "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman; and "The Pelican" and "The Fullness of Life" by Edith Wharton.

Herland takes the listener on a fascinating journey into a utopian society comprised entirely of women. A society with no men also means no conflict, resulting in a war-free existence. It is a perfect world, but only if you are female. Three men set out on a journey into uncharted territory to discover for themselves if the legend of an all-female society is a myth or actually a reality. Tracking down the mythical realm of women poses plenty of challenges, but what they ultimately find is both enchanting and frightening.

An iconic early feminist utopian novel. This work was one element in the major wave of utopian and dystopian literature that marked the later nineteenth and early twentieth century. A man previously lost to the world is found by his sister and tries to re-enter society. He had amnesia so he is now 55 in body, but 25 in his own mind. The book delves into how the man accommodates to the progress in industry and society; but most of all - and most importantly - it is a fascinating study of how he reacts to and deals with the significant changes and progress regarding the position of women in the society.

The Yellow Wallpaper is Charlotte Gilman's best known work. Written from the perspective of a woman suffering post-partum psychosis, it draws the listener into a world which is both terrifying and fascinating, where strange events occur and where even the wallpaper takes on a sinister and creepy significance. The narration and language are masterful, but it is the way the listener is invited to empathise and almost experience the mental illness first hand which make a lasting impression.

Diagnosed by her physician husband with a “temporary nervous depression - a slight hysterical tendency” after the birth of her child, a woman is urged to rest for the summer in an old colonial mansion. Forbidden from doing work of any kind, she spends her days in the house’s former nursery, with its barred windows, scratched floor, and peeling yellow wallpaper. In a private journal, the woman records her growing obsession with the “horrid” wallpaper. Its strange pattern mutates in the moonlight, revealing what appears to be a human figure in the design.

On the eve of the First World War, sociology student Vandyck Jennings goes on an expedition with two of his friends to search for a society rumored to consist only of women. On the way to what they will name “Herland,” Van and his friends ponder the type of women they hope or expect to see when they get there … but they find no fantasies when they arrive. Herland is an all-female, community-driven utopia. Van and his friends are skeptical of a society that doesn’t even need men to procreate, but women and girls who live there have been raised in a world removed the patriarchy of the world.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) was an influential feminist author. This short story, "If I Were a Man" reveals the subconscious thoughts of Mollie Mathewson, a young woman who yearns to become a man. Then suddenly she becomes her husband, Gerald, and experiences various strange and different perspectives.

Herland is a captivating utopian novel from 1915, crafted by the visionary feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman. This intriguing narrative unfolds in a secluded society composed exclusively of women who reproduce through parthenogenesis, leading to an idyllic social order devoid of war, conflict, and oppression. Originally serialized in Gilmans own magazine, Forerunner, this thought-provoking tale invites readers to explore a world where harmony reigns supreme.

Through the eyes of sociologist Van, listeners are invited into a land where motherhood is revered, cooperation triumphs over competition, and progress is built on logic, compassion, and education. As the men struggle to reconcile their expectations with reality, Herland challenges assumptions about gender, culture, and what it means to be civilized. With sharp wit and revolutionary insight, Charlotte Perkins-Gilman dismantles patriarchal norms and imagines a world transformed by equality and reason.

Americans have vivid, colourful and mesmerising imaginations. On the flip side they are equally adept at Realism. In this volume their famed authors explore short stories that bring us up close and personal to reality.

We are all driven by needs, desires, ambitions and many other forces. Life runs as normal with the obligatory ups and downs. In this volume such literary leviathans as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Nikolai Gogol, Edgar Allan Poe, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and many others provide tales from pens that seep with wisdom and worry.

Presented here are three of the most important feminist novels ever written: Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and The Awakening by Kate Chopin. Each of these works is an early groundbreaking piece of fiction from some of literature's finest female writers as they explore life, love, and the struggle of women to find their voices in a time where they were too often silenced and suppressed.

With Her in Ourland: Sequel to Herland is a feminist novel and sociological commentary written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The novel is a follow-up and sequel to Herland (1915), and picks up immediately following the events of Herland, with Terry, Van, and Ellador traveling from Herland to "Ourland" (the contemporary 1915-16 world). The majority of the novel follows Van and Ellador's travels throughout the world, and particularly the United States, with Van curating their explorations through the then-modern world, while Ellador offers her commentary and "prescriptions".

"Herland" is a trailblazing novel from feminist icon Charlotte Perkins Gilman and should be on everyone's TBR list. In this new audio edition, acclaimed actress Rosy McEwen delivers a spellbinding performance bringing a modern and fresh touch to this "forgotten feminist classic" as The Guardian called it. The story follows Vandyck 'Van' Jennings and two explorer friends as they venture out in to unexplored territory in search of a lost female only society. When they happen upon the female utopia, they are eventually captured and held within Herland, as Van calls it.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s haunting chronicle of crippling depression, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” is a cornerstone of weird fiction. First published in 1892, it has now been given an unsettling yet empathetic treatment courtesy of Robert Hunter (original score) and Linda Jones (narration) who skillfully brings the listener into the tale’s interiority and demonstrates its timelessness.

A young woman and her husband, John, a respected physician, spend a summer at a colonial mansion. John imposes a 'rest cure' on his wife when she suffers a 'nervous depression' following the birth of their child. The woman is largely confined to the nursery upstairs where she gradually gets lost in the sickly yellow wallpaper.

Her supportive, though misunderstanding, physician husband, John, believes it is in her best interests to go on a "rest cure" after the birth of their child. The family spends the summer at a colonial mansion that has, in the narrator's words, "something queer about it" and her depression/anxiety, (commonly diagnosed today as postpartum depression), spirals out of control as she fixates on the yellow wallpaper in their bedroom.

Step into the peeling corners of a sunlit nursery where shadows weave stories, and the wallpaper whispers secrets to the solitary occupant. The Yellow Wallpaper is a haunting exploration of the fine line between reality and madness, told through the intimate, unraveling voice of a woman confined by both a stifling room and the suffocating norms of her time. In this groundbreaking work, Gilman transforms the mundane into the menacing, using the seemingly innocent patterns of wallpaper to reveal a tapestry of despair, resilience, and suppressed creativity.

It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer. A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicity—but that would be asking too much of fate! Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it. Else, why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood so long untenanted? John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage. John is practical in the extreme.

Mental illness though can still carry a stigma. A case of ‘you’re not trying hard enough’, ‘or knuckling down and getting on with it’. But in more recent decades mental issues have come to be recognised as an illness, a disease rather than an affliction. We all remember horror stories of lobotomy’s and electric shock being used to ‘cure’ what society viewed as anti-social behaviour but illness, mental or physical is very real. Depression, schizophrenia, breakdown, psychosis are alarming events to have or to witness.