Synopsis|Review (credit: back cover)

Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrenched this small literary masterpiece from her own experience. Narrated with superb psychological skill and dramatic precision, it tells the story of a nameless woman driven mad by enforced confinement after the birth of her child.

Isolated in a colonial mansion in the middle of nowhere, forced to sleep in an attic nursery with barred windows and sickly yellow wallpaper, secretly she does what she has to do — she writes. She craves intellectual stimulation, activity, loving understanding. Instead she is ordered to her bedroom to rest and 'pull herself together'. Here, slowly but surely, the tortuous pattern of the wallpaper winds its way into the recesses of her mind ...

First published in 1892, this perfect novel portrays with chilling power the powerlessness of women within Victorian marriage.

On the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die List.

(Bought second-hand at Help the Rural Child Charity Bookshop, Main Road, Retreat.)

One of the shortest and most remarkable books I have read. If one takes the period and circumstances of the author into consideration, the book, with its autobiographical elements, represents an act of pure defiance and courage.

Donated to Help the Rural Child, a charity second-hand bookshop.

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