Showing results by author "Charlotte Perkins-Gilman" in All Categories

A woman and her husband rent a summer house, but what should be a restful getaway turns into a suffocating psychological battle. This chilling account of postpartum depression and a husband's controlling behaviour in the guise of treatment will leave you breathless.

Herland takes the listener on a fascinating journey into a utopian society comprised entirely of women. A society with no men also means no conflict, resulting in a war-free existence. It is a perfect world, but only if you are female. Three men set out on a journey into uncharted territory to discover for themselves if the legend of an all-female society is a myth or actually a reality. Tracking down the mythical realm of women poses plenty of challenges, but what they ultimately find is both enchanting and frightening.

A young wife becomes obsessed with the wallpaper in the room of her holiday home in The Yellow Wallpaper. A man is tormented by the embalmed hand of his deceased uncle in The Beast with Five Fingers. For the protagonists of these three supernatural stories, ghostly terror lurks beneath the surface of ordinary life, and reality can all too easily fray at the seams.... Evocatively read by three of our finest actors, and with atmospheric music, these eerie, enthralling tales are perfect listening for dark winter nights.

This century is crammed full of talents that showcase an enviable array of stories and genres. Across a hundred years the short story develops, becomes yet more emboldened, more accessible to a wider audience as these female authors challenge the literary bastions.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland, first published in 1915, is a feminist utopian novel that describes an isolated society composed entirely of women---a progressive, environmentally conscious land where peace and rationality reign and poverty is unknown.

Mental illness though can still carry a stigma. A case of ‘you’re not trying hard enough’, ‘or knuckling down and getting on with it’. But in more recent decades mental issues have come to be recognised as an illness, a disease rather than an affliction. We all remember horror stories of lobotomy’s and electric shock being used to ‘cure’ what society viewed as anti-social behaviour but illness, mental or physical is very real. Depression, schizophrenia, breakdown, psychosis are alarming events to have or to witness.

Diagnosed by her physician husband with a “temporary nervous depression - a slight hysterical tendency” after the birth of her child, a woman is urged to rest for the summer in an old colonial mansion. Forbidden from doing work of any kind, she spends her days in the house’s former nursery, with its barred windows, scratched floor, and peeling yellow wallpaper. In a private journal, the woman records her growing obsession with the “horrid” wallpaper. Its strange pattern mutates in the moonlight, revealing what appears to be a human figure in the design.

Presented in the first person, the story is a collection of journal entries written by a woman whose physician husband (John) has rented an old mansion for the summer and the couple moves into the upstairs nursery. As a form of treatment, she is forbidden from working, but encouraged to eat well and get plenty of exercise and air, so she can recuperate from what he calls a temporary nervous depression - a slight hysterical tendency, a diagnosis common to women in that period.

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. They can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. A decade of monumental change and slaughter. Many of society’s telling questions are cast aside in times of that speak of greater needs, greater priorities. For these talented authors their ideas and words keep these magnificent stories at the forefront of our literary lives.

Great Horror Stories is a vintage collection of some of the finest ghost tales, horror stories, and supernatural legends ever written, by the best writers the genre has to offer.

An anthology of chilling, classic horror stories, including "The Tale-Tell Heart", "The Pit and the Pendulum", and "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe; "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving; "The Hand", "Was it a Dream?", and "The Horla" by Guy de Maupassant; "The Red Room" by H.G. Wells; "Moon-Face" by Jack London; "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

The American Classics Collection: Volume II is a century-spanning collection of 15 classic novels, short stories, essay, and poetry by American authors, read by a cast of incredible narrators including Adam Sims; Nathan Osgood; Robert G. Slade; Jonathan Keeble, Katherine Fenton; and more. Included here are stories by some of the greatest writers of all time, including Herman Melville; Upton Sinclair; Mark Twain; Walt Whitman; F. Scott Fitzgerald; Thornton Wilder; Edith Wharton; Jack London; amongst a host of others.

Contents: - Washington Irving. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow - Edgar Allan Poe. The Gold Bug - Herman Melville. Bartleby, the Scrivener - Bret Harte. The Luck of Roaring Camp - Leo Tolstoy. The Death of Ivan Ilyich - Fyodor Dostoevsky. The Dream of a Ridiculous Man - Rudyard Kipling. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi - Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The Yellow Wallpaper - Anton Chekhov. The Lady with the Dog - D.H. Lawrence. The Prussian Officer - James Joyce. Araby - Ivan Turgenev. First Love.

The Ultimate Classics Collection: Volume Four is the fourth instalment of our wide-ranging classic collections. Volume Four features 12 timeless works that largely focuses on the greats of American and British literature, with novels from Charles Dickens, Edith Wharton, Thomas Hardy, Victor Hugo, and others. Read by a cast of incredible narrators including Miranda Raison, Pearl Mackie, Adam Sims, David Rintoul, and more, this is a chance to expand your listening with some of the greatest authors of all time.

The theme of this volume is Bad Therapy. In Volume 11, we explored the transformative and cathartic world of Good Therapy. But what happens when therapy goes bad? Let's find out together.

In this volume we examine Gothic short stories from the woman’s point of view. More usually in this genre the main examples are almost always given as male. Well, in this volume we prove that view needs severely testing. Here we explore works by classic women authors who, with the sheer breadth of their talents and narratives, can make mere men seem tame by comparison.

Written with barely controlled fury after she was confined to her room for 'nerves' and forbidden to write, Gilman's pioneering feminist horror story scandalised 19th-century readers with its portrayal of a woman who loses her mind because she has literally nothing to do.

In this volume our authors explore the terrors of the mind rather than the horrors of reality, although with their pens the difference makes little difference. We twist this way and that as their talents shape our path towards endings of the nerve-shredding kind.

The Yellow Wallpaper is Charlotte Gilman's best known work. Written from the perspective of a woman suffering post-partum psychosis, it draws the listener into a world which is both terrifying and fascinating, where strange events occur and where even the wallpaper takes on a sinister and creepy significance. The narration and language are masterful, but it is the way the listener is invited to empathise and almost experience the mental illness first hand which make a lasting impression.

First published in 1892, The Yellow Wallpaper is a classic short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It's an early work of feminist literature focused on a female protagonist and her relationship with husband John. A great work for studying and casual listening. This version of The Yellow Wallpaper has excellent narration and the highest quality of audio. All audio is engineered with careful attention to detail for your enjoyment of the story.