What Diantha Did

What Diantha Did
by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Download Book
(Respecting the intellectual property of others is utmost important to us, we make every effort to make sure we only link to legitimate sites, such as those sites owned by authors and publishers. If you have any questions about these links, please contact us.)

link 1
link 2
link 3

About Book

Book Description
This edition of What Diantha Did makes newly available Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s first novel, complete with an in-depth introduction. First published serially in Gilman’s magazine The Forerunner in 1909–10, the novel tells the story of Diantha Bell, a young woman who leaves her home and her fiancé to start a housecleaning business. A resourceful heroine, Diantha quickly expands her business into an enterprise that includes a maid service, cooked food delivery service, restaurant, and hotel. By assigning a cash value to women’s “invisible” work, providing a means for the well-being and moral uplift of working girls, and releasing middle-class and leisure-class women from the burden of conventional domestic chores, Diantha proves to her family and community the benefits of professionalized housekeeping.

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.

Download Description
It's not because I don't love you, Mother. It's because I do. And it's not because I don't love Ross either:--it's because I do. I want to take care of you, Mother, and make life easier for you as long as you live. I want to help him--to help carry that awful load--and I'm going--to--do--it!

About the Author
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.

Comments

SEND A COMMENT

PLEASE READ: All comments must be approved before appearing in the thread; time and space constraints prevent all comments from appearing. We will only approve comments that are directly related to the article, use appropriate language and are not attacking the comments of others.