Julie Bates Dock

This is absolutely my favorite version of Gilman's well-known short story, "The Yellow Wall-Paper." While, okay, not many people beyond literary academics are going to be interested in the differences between Julie Dock's "authoritative text," as the back cover reads, it also contains her exhaustive research into the history of the piece, and the various twists and turns the piece's framework has undergone from its initial and allegedly scandalous publication to its revival in the 60s (which isn't as clear-cut as it seems like it should be.)

I'd read the short story in a basic literature course which didn't stray much beyond the standard understanding of the text as a feminist outcry against the tyrannical expectations of housewifery, but I gotta say Gilman's personal vendetta with her psychiatrist was way more interesting.

This book includes snippets of Gilman's diary, manuscript log entries, and correspondence, as well as contemporaneous reviews of the work.… (més)