At the beginning of the century, women's work was inside the home and raising a family. By the end of the century, Victorian women were attempting to add meaning and fulfillment to their lives. Women in this country were attempting to gain the right to vote, they were forming women's groups and societies, and women like Gilman, Chopin, Wollstonecraft Shelley, and others, were attempting to create their own writing careers, allowing them to be at least partially autonomous and independent. They write of women's struggles for equality and understanding with great knowledge, skill, and perception. They also write of the realities of being a woman in the 19th century. For the most part, women's...
The Awakening, and Other Stories. Ed. Knights, Pamela. Oxford: Oxford University, 2000.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wall-Paper." The Online Archive of Nineteenth-Century U.S. Women's Writings. Ed. Glynis Carr. Fall 1999. 9 May 2008. http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/gcarr/19cUSWW/CPG/TYW.html
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, ed. George Parsons Lathrop (Riverside Edition), 12 vols. Boston, 1890.
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein or, the Modern Prometheus. New York: Collier Books, 1961.
