First published in 1892, The Yellow Wallpaper is Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short masterpiece about a woman confined to a room by her physician husband following a nervous collapse — a treatment drawn from Gilman’s own terrifying experience of the “rest cure.” Told through diary entries, the narrator’s growing obsession with the wallpaper’s pattern becomes a harrowing portrait of a mind unraveling under oppression.
Rediscovered by feminist scholars in the 1970s, the story is now recognized as one of the essential works of American literature. Download this free public-domain EPUB at Better Gutenberg.