“Judith Allen has written the biography that Charlotte Perkins Gilman has long deserved. The Feminism of Charlotte Perkins Gilman restores its subject to her rightful place in the pantheon of Progressive reformers. Allen is a superb researcher and a shrewd judge of evidence and character. By setting Gilman in her time and place, Allen allows us to go beyond present-day exposure of the weaknesses that Gilman shared with many of her contemporaries to assess the strengths that she brought to her analysis of the sex and gender system. This fine work enables us to appreciate the reach of Gilman’s ambition, the power of her determination, and the full force of her achievement.”

Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, author of Rereading Sex

"Allen slkilfully weaves a path through . . . complex issues in this richly textured book, pointing out that while Gilman will ineveitably disappoint some we must not forget the contribution she made to theorising about women’s subjection, and the way she tried to integrate these views into the reform movements of her day."

June Purvis | Times Higher Education

“Judith A. Allen has written what will become the definitive biography of Charlotten Perkins Gilman. . . . Allen’s enormous achievement is her insistence that Gilman’s life be read as a whole: the much-beloved aspects alongside the much maligned. . . . The importance and rigor of this work, and Gilman’s own legacy, will ensure ongoing and vigorous debate.”

Journal of American History