from the Gentlemen's Auxiliary

I have just finished a book, Herland, and selected stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. I say finished in euphemistic form, I skimmed a bit of Herland, the initial novella and decided to skip it as both too farfetched in premise and too predictable in point of view and outcome—an undiscovered land of women, and the not very salacious adventures of three young Victorian gentlemen who stumble upon it.

Ah, but all the others, some 20 short stories unrelated one to another with the following exceptions. In each case but one, the heroine prevails with humor and wit and a perfectly sensible outlook, if a touch more modern than the minor characters find appropriate for the times. In sum, they are stories by a turn of the 20^th century female O’ Henry. Each with a gentle, feminine twist, each made me smile.

That one exception I noted, The Yellow Wallpaper, is her most famous, and probably most anthologized work. It is a dark tale of a woman slowly going mad. Well worth reading, to be sure, formidable of theme and powerfully written, but not light, not uplifting, nothing in the end to smile at. With that said, I believe I can recommend any collection of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short stories.