SOURCE: “Introduction to Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Utopian Novels: Moving the Mountain, Herland, and With Her in Ourland,” in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Utopian Novels, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, edited and with an introduction by Minna Doskow, Madison and Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1999, pp. 9-29.

In the following essay, Doskow provides an overview of Gilman's utopian novels.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman concludes her autobiography with the statement, “The one predominant duty is to find one's work and do it, and I have striven mightily at that” (The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman [hereafter abbreviated as Living] 335). Recognized as a leading woman intellectual of her time, author of twelve books, numerous essays, poems, stories, journalist, editor, and tireless lecturer, Gilman saw her work as the fight for women's rights and social justice. Overcoming personal struggles, mental depression, lack of funds, and other obstacles, she did indeed strive mightily with mind, voice...