Charlotte Perkins Gilman

"In her immensely readable and comprehensive biography, Cynthia J. Davis tells Gilman's fascinating life story with precision, wisdom, and tact. Davis's Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A Biography provides the most complete consideration of Gilman's life. This book includes twenty-five photographs, some never before published, and its careful documentation of sources will prove a boon to future Gilman scholars."—Jean M. Lutes, Feminist Collections
"Davis's long-awaited masterpiece is the most comprehensive Gilman biography to date. Both lyrical and scholarly, this splendid volume offers a coherent and compelling narrative of Gilman's life, work, and philosophy, drawing upon a rich field of source material . . . It is essential reading for Gilman scholars and promises to be the definitive Gilman biography for years to come."—Jennifer S. Tuttle, Resources for American Literary Study
"Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a remarkable retelling of a 'living' that includes, but is not limited to, the career of a figure larger than life . . . Refreshingly, Davis does not shy away from juxtaposing Charlotte's professed philosophies with her lived experiences. A major strength of this biography is Davis's willingness to reveal inconsistencies, contradictions, and potentially unflattering elements of Charlotte's aspirations . . . Even though Davis's work weighs in at over five hundred pages, her writing style and fruitful research leave the reader wanting more, rather than less, of both Charlotte's and Davis's observations."—Cara L. Burnidge, H-Net
"Thanks to Cynthia J. Davis, scholars, students, and general readers finally have a definitive, authoritative, and comprehensive biography of the often enigmatic Charlotte Perkins Gilman. This much anticipated study of Gilman is, in a word, superb . . . [I]t is in the lesser known documents and materials that Davis has found the stuff great biographies are made of. Her meticulously researched volume brings both substance to and new revelations about Gilman's life in a manner that is captivating, thorough, well-informed, and inclusive . . . This book is a must read for anyone interested not only in Gilman but also in the cultural, intellectual, and social history of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries."—Denise D. Knight, Legacy
"To read Davis's book is to be enriched by the lively, evocative pen of Gilman the poet. Every chapter and every section of every chapter (generally there are five) has an epigraph, often a selection from the poetry, which Davis uses skillfully to interpret her life."—Louise W. Knight, Women's Review of Books
"The plethora of biographical data the author resurrected informs this comprehensive, scholarly portrait of Gilman's complex, controversial life and career, significantly contributing to the study of American literature, particularly 19th-century American women writers. The book is noteworthy not only for its inclusion of new salient information about Gilman, but for the careful correlations Davis provides to better present Gilman, the private woman, and her particular public forums of activism . . . Summing up: Essential."—M.L. Mock, University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, CHOICE
"This may be the definitive biography of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Over the last twenty years, a wealth of biographical data has come to light, much of it unearthed by Davis. Felicitously written, judiciously organized, and critically and theoretically informed, this Gilman biography will supersede all that have come before it."—Gary Scharnhorst, University of New Mexico