Charlotte Perkins Gilman was far ahead of her time in terms of the advancement of women as people as well as a more socialist and egalitarian society. One wishes her ideas about communal living and the categorization of "women's work" in the home as actual work that deserved (deserves) remuneration would have caught on much sooner. It seems like it might have been easier to bring about such a substantial sea change when our nation was younger and less ingrained in this capitalist 1%-focused society and mindset.
I very much enjoyed reading every story and excerpt contained herein and actually have already purchased full versions of two of the books excerpted here because I am compelled to read them in their entirety. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in considering ways in which we may be able to remake our world into a better place for women. ( )

THE CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN READER es una antología de ficción de uno de los escritores feministas más importantes de Estados Unidos. Probablemente mejor conocido como el autor de "The Yellow Wallpaper", en el que una mujer se vuelve loca por la psiquiatría machista, Gilman escribió muchos otros cuentos y novelas que reflejan su visión socialista y feminista radical de la América del cambio de siglo. Recogidos aquí por la notable erudita de Gilman, Ann J. Lane, hay dieciocho historias y fragmentos, incluida una selección de Herland, la utopía feminista de Gilman. La antología resultante proporciona un plan provocativo para la producción intelectual y creativa de Gilman. ( )

Read The Yellow Wallpaper and The Unnatural Mother -- Herland, the story I had originally wanted to read, is only excerpted in this volume (bah), so I will have to search the shelves to find the actual full copy of the book the library SAYS it has, but which I could not locate. I do not like abridgements in general, since I have no idea what motivates the editor to remove some portions and emphasize others and I'm not inclined to trust there. I glanced through a few other stories but didn't get interested.

As ancestor feminist fiction, I understand the ideas put forth in the two stories I read through, and with a familiarity with the period in which they were written, I can see why they are still used as source texts. Otherwise I didn't particularly enjoy them, in part perhaps because nothing in them seemed new (references to them have turned up in so much other material, and of course they have inspired so many other stories), but rather overly familiar. This isn't their fault as stories, or Gilman's -- she has no control, certainly over how they are now used, but I've suffered over exposure and cannot see them clearly enough to properly appreciate them. They feel much too broad and blatant to me now. ( )

I really enjoyed this. The Yellow Wallpaper is frequently anthologised but not much else so it was nice to see more from her. A lot of this was written to deadline and out of a need to pay bills, so its not polished and repolished, its got a similar feel to some of some of the great classics of the pulps, light fast moving, articulate, telling a lively tale without a lot of furbelows. From an utterly different sensibility than say, Tarzan or Barsoom or Riders of the Purple Sage of course. I particularly liked some of the short stories where women try some (often magical) trick to escape housework so they can get some paid work done. The more things change... ( )

I only read the short stories in this collection, as the rest was all excerpts from novels, and I'd rather read the whole novel. As for the short stories--of which there are 11--at least 8 of them were the same formula: woman is oppressed in her role as wife/mother, woman finds some kind of work that fulfills her, other women cluck disapprovingly while admitting that she may be on to something if it's working for her. They're funny, witty, and engaging at first, but by the fifth iteration of the same basic plot, it's a little wearing.

The standout is still The Yellow Wallpaper, because it really is the best American short story of all time. ( )