What Diantha Did
In her introduction to the novel, Charlotte J. Rich highlights Gilman’s engagement with such hotly debated Progressive Era issues as the “servant question,” the rise of domestic science, and middle-class efforts to protect and aid the working girl. She illuminates the novel’s connections to Gilman’s other feminist works, including “The Yellow Wall-Paper” and Herland; to her personal life; and to her commitment to women’s social and economic freedom. Rich contends that the novel’s engagement with class and race makes it particularly significant to the newly complex understanding of Gilman that has emerged in recent scholarship. What Diantha Did provides essential insight into Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s important legacy of social thought.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) was the author of novels, short stories, poems, and works of nonfiction. She is best known for “The Yellow Wall-Paper” (1892), Women and Economics (1898), and the novel Herland (1915). Her novel The Crux (1910) is also published by Duke University Press.
Charlotte J. Rich is Associate Professor of English at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, Kentucky. She is editor of The Charlotte Perkins Gilman Newsletter.