Feminist Literary Classics - Volume I

by Virginia Woolf, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Kate Chopin

Overview

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. 

Mrs. Dalloway details a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a British socialite in post-First World War England. Looping backwards and forwards in time, the reader is given a glimpse inside the mind of Mrs. Dalloway as she goes about her day. Mrs. Dalloway was included on Time Magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels ever written. 

The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story of extraordinary power, exploring issues of mental health, the role of women in society and the oppressive nature of the patriarchy. 

The Awakening is a stunningly beautiful novel set in New Orleans that tells the tale of Edna Pontellier, a young housewife attempting to break free from her loveless marriage and find a life of her own.

All three books are presented here in their original and unabridged format.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781958943106
Publisher:	Ft. Raphael Publishing Company
Publication date:	09/06/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	354
File size:	692 KB

About the Author

Adeline Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) née Stephen, was an English writer, publisher and feminist. She is considered one of the most important early 20th-century authors and was an early practitioner of what became known as "stream of consciousness" writing. From 1897 to 1901, Virginia attended the Ladies' Department of King's College London, where she studied of classical writing and history and where she came into contact with some of the early reformers of both women's higher education and the women's rights movement. When their mother, Julia, died of influenza in 1895, Virginia's the older siblings took on their mother's role in raising the children. This period is when Virginia first began to battle mental illness, which would plague her throughout her life. In 1912, Virginia married Leonard Woolf, a strong supporter of Virginia's budding writing career. Virginia published her first book - The Voyage Out - in 1915 through her half-brother's publishing house but soon afterwards Virginia and Leonard Woolf founded Hogarth Press which would publish most of Virginia's novels as well as works by E.M. Forster and T.S. Eliot. The best known of Virginia's literary works include Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and Orlando (1928).Virginia and Leonard Woolf's relationship was based on mutual respect but not a great deal of physical attraction. Virginia was most likely a lesbian, though some have argued that she may have been bisexual. At any rate, Virginia had affairs with several women (most notably Vita Sackville-West, who inspired Woolf's novel Orlando).Virginia Woolf enjoyed great literary success in her lifetime and her books have been translated into more than 50 languages. Though her popularity waned in the years following her death, the feminist movement of the 1970's did much to revive her reputation and solidify her as one of the most important writers of the 20th century.Mental illness continued to trouble Woof for the rest of her life, causing her to be institutionalized several times. In 1941, Woolf wrote a suicide note, filled her pockets with stones and drowned herself in the River Ouse in Yorkshire.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) was an American writer, lecturer, feminist, social reformer and, troublingly, a eugenicist.Born into poverty, Charlotte Perkins had a difficult childhood and very little early education. Despite her intelligence, she was a poor student who refused to put any effort into any subject that did not interest her. Reconnecting with her absentee father - who modestly supported her tuition at the Rhode Island School of Design - she began working in the arts as a trade card artist, tutor and painter. But her father's real influence on young Charlotte was to introduce her to literature. Charlotte began writing at an early age and her fiction was often peppered with her opinions on domestic life, society at large and, in particular, the oppression of women.Married briefly and divorced as a young woman (she had one child, Katherine, with her first husband), Charlotte was known to have had at least two romantic relationships with women, but she ultimately found a partner in Houghton Gilman (also her first cousin), whom she married in 1900 and lived with until his death in 1934.Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote several books and poetry collections and was the driving force behind the literary magazines The Impress and The Forerunner, which serialized a number of her own works. She wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper" in 1890 and it was published in the January 1892 issue of The New England Magazine. Since then, the story has been re-printed in countless anthologies, textbooks and collections of women's literature.While she was a strong advocate for women and a proud social reformer, Gilman had troubling views on race - believing African-Americans to be inferior - and ultimately declared herself a eugenicist. These beliefs have caused critics to view her work as tinged with racism, which certainly has tarnished her reputation as a writer overall.Shortly after her husband's death, Gilman was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer. Rather than suffer the effects of the illness, she chose to take her own life and on August 17, 1935, she died of an overdose of chloroform.
Kate Chopin (1851-1905) was a late 19th century short story writer and novelist. Based in Louisiana (and later, the Midwest), Chopin was not properly recognized for her progressive and forward-thinking prose during her lifetime and, in fact, much of her writing was considered immoral and controversial when it was first published.Born Katherine O'Flaherty in St. Louis, Missouri, she married Oscar Chopin and the couple settled down in Oscar's home town of New Orleans where they had six children. Following a series of catastrophic events - the death of her husband, the failure of the family business and oppressive, mounting debts - Kate moved back to St. Louis to live with her mother (who also died shortly thereafter).Suffering from depression following these devastating occurrences, a family doctor suggested she take up writing as an outlet for her creative energy, to distract her from her troubles and as a potential source of income.Chopin soon began producing short stories in prodigious numbers and they were regularly picked up by local periodicals and various literary magazines. The publication of her second novel, The Awakening, brought her a lot of media attention, but most of it was negative, with critics assailing her story of oppression, sexual exploration and marital infidelity as morally offensive. Though she never made much money at writing (she survived mostly on wise investments and the inheritance from her mother), she returned to short story writing and continued to produce works until her untimely death, of a brain hemorrhage, in 1904 at the age of 54. Chopin's works were largely out of print until the 1970's when her stories enjoyed a resurgence during the feminist movement and The Awakening has since become a revered and celebrated literary work around the world.

Date of Birth:

January 25, 1882

Date of Death:

March 28, 1941

Place of Birth:

London

Place of Death:

Sussex, England

Education:

Home schooling