Introduction Summary

The Introduction by Ann J. Lane characterizes Herland as feminist-socialist satire. Lane presents a brief biography of Charlotte Perkins Gilman then places Herland in context as one of three utopian works created by the author. Lane also discusses Gilman's notable reputation, largely forgotten by scholars at the time of Lane's writing (1979), and links Gilman's work with the birth of the feminist movement in America.

Notable elements from Gilman's biography include a difficult childhood, Gilman's two marriages, a terminal cancer diagnosis and her ultimate suicide. Gilman was born Charlotte Anna Perkins to a man of letters, Frederic Beecher Perkins, who abandoned his wife and child shortly after his daughter's birth. Struggling to raise her daughter alone, Mary A. Fitch moved nineteen times in eighteen years, living in fourteen different cities. This traumatic childhood for Charlotte is followed by her marriage in 1884, at age twenty-four...