Gilman Charlotte Perkins Stetson - Charlotte Perkins Gilmans The yellow wall-paper and the history of its publication and reception: a critical edition and documentary casebook

Charlotte Perkins Gilmans
The Yellow Wall-paper

James L. W. West III, General Editor

The series publishes books that employ a mixture of approaches: historical, archival, biographical, critical, sociological, and economic. Projected topics include professional authorship and the literary marketplace, the history of reading and book distribution, book-trade studies and publishing-house histories, and examinations of copyright and literary property.

Peter Burke, The Fortunes of the Courtier: The European Reception of Castigliones Cortegiano

James M. Hutchisson, The Rise of Sinclair Lewis, 19201930

Julie Bates Dock, ed. Charlotte Perkins Gilmans The Yellow Wall-paper and the History of Its Publication and Reception: A Critical Edition and Documentary Casebook

John Williams, ed., Imaging the Early Medieval Bible

Penn State Reprints in Book History

James L. W. West III and Samuel S. Vaughan, Editors

Roger Burlingame, Of Making Many Books: A Hundred Years of Reading, Writing and Publishing

A Critical Edition and Documentary Casebook

Julie Bates Dock

Compiler and Editor

The Pennsylvania State University Press

University Park, Pennsylvania

Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, 18601935.

Charlotte Perkins Gilmans The yellow wall-paper and the History of Its Publication and Reception : a critical edition and documentary casebook / Julie Bates Dock, compiler and editor.

p. cm. (The Penn State series in the history of the book)

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-271-01733-3 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN 0-271-01734-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Married women PsychologyFiction.

2. Mentally ill women Fiction

3. Sex role Fiction.

4. Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, 18601935. Yellow wallpaper.

5. Feminism and literatureUnited States.

6. Women and literature United States.

7. Sex role in literature. I. Dock, Julie Bates. II. Title. III. Series.

PS1744.G57Y45 1998

813'.4dc21 97-28775

CIP

Introduction, critical edition of the text of The Yellow Wall-paper, and textual notes and apparatus Copyright 1998

The Pennsylvania State University

All rights reserved

Published by

The Pennsylvania State University Press,

University Park, PA 16802-1003

It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-free paper for the first printing of all clothbound books. Publications on uncoated stock satisfy the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.

Disclaimer: A previously published version of this title was scanned with an optical character recognition program in order to create this ebook file. While every effort was made to catch errors in transcription and formatting, a few may remain. Therefore, any critical use of material, including citations, should be checked against the original publication.

My investigations into the story behind the story of The Yellow Wall-paper began with a simple collation exercise in an undergraduate course I offered on scholarly editing. I am grateful to the many students in that course who made preliminary collations of the story and who helped establish the relationships among various editions. Three of those students deserve special thanks and praise: Daphne Ryan Allen, Jennifer Palais, and Kristen Tracy worked with me for more than a year, tracking down reviews, comparing editions, and helping draft an article detailing our findings. Their insights and continued enthusiasm helped sustain the project to its first stage of completion. Portions of my introduction were first published in our collaborative article, But One Expects That: Charlotte Perkins Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper and the Shifting Light of Scholarship, PMLA 111 (January 1996), 5265; they are reprinted by permission of the copyright owner, the Modern Language Association of America.

The community of Gilman scholars has been a source of support and stimulation throughout this project. I am particularly indebted to the pioneering scholarship and gracious encouragement of Gary Scharnhorst. Denise Knight and Shawn St. Jean offered valuable suggestions when some of my investigations had reached a dead end. Donald Ross and his students pointed me toward articles on S. Weir Mitchells rest cure of which I was unaware.

This collection would not have been possible without the assistance of many librarians and archivists. My chief debt is to the dedicated staff of the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library for the History of Women in America, especially Ellen Shea, Wendy Thomas, and Marie-Hlne Gold. My work at the Schlesinger was aided by a Radcliffe College Research Support Grant, for which I am most grateful. Steve Thacker of Loyola Marymount University kindly secured interlibrary loans that helped my work immeasurably. For archival assistance and permission to reprint items in their collections, I would also like to thank Charles Greifenstein, Tom Horrocks, and Kevin Crawford at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia; Martha King and Richard D. Stattler at the Rhode Island Historical Society; the Houghton Library of Harvard University; the Henry E. Huntington Memorial Library; the Boston Public Library; the Stowe-Day Center and Robinson Beecher Stowe.

Philip Winsor at Penn State Press encouraged my work long before I turned my attention to Gilman, and Sandy Thatcher supported this project from the outset. The comments and questions of James L. W. West III continually helped me refine and focus my arguments, and for his criticisms I am especially grateful.

My family and friends tirelessly cheered me on and I feel lucky to have had them by me always. Holli Levitsky, Susan Lesser, Phyllis Franzek, and Caroline Gebhard read early versions of my article and offered corrective suggestions with force and tactI thank them for both. Charles sustained my spirit, Abigail sang away my cares, and Mom turned out to be a terrific research assistant.

Finally, I dedicate this book to the next generation of Gilman scholars in the hope that it will stimulate their own research, lead them to question received legends, and cause them to be wary of their predecessors conclusionsincluding mine.