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´The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing.´

Written with barely controlled fury after she was confined to her room for ´nerves´ and forbidden to write, Gilman´s pioneering feminist horror story scandalized nineteenth-century readers with its portrayal of a woman who loses her mind because she has literally nothing to do.

Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin´s 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935). Gilman´s work is available in Penguin Classics in The Yellow Wall-Paper, Herland and Selected Writings.

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Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935). Gilman´s work is available in Penguin Classics in The Yellow Wall-Paper, Herland and Selected Writings.

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