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Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Herland (1986)

English language

Published Feb. 12, 1986

ISBN:
978-0-7043-3840-1
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3 stars (3 reviews)

Herland is a utopian novel from 1915, written by American feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The book describes an isolated society composed entirely of women, who bear children without men (parthenogenesis, a form of asexual reproduction). The result is an ideal social order: free of war, conflict, and domination. It was first published in monthly installments as a serial in 1915 in The Forerunner, a magazine edited and written by Gilman between 1909 and 1916, with its sequel, With Her in Ourland beginning immediately thereafter in the January 1916 issue. The book is often considered to be the middle volume in her utopian trilogy, preceded by Moving the Mountain (1911). It was not published in book form until 1979.

6 editions

Review of 'Herland: A Lost Feminist Utopian Novel' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

So, having read more of Charlotte Gilman's wikipedia page I must subsequently rewrite my review a little bit and lower the rating a bit further.

Apparently Charlotte Perkins Gilman was pretty racist by modern standards. Unfortunately by the standards of the time not so much. But that certainly explains why, unlike their sexist assumptions, the character's colonialist attitudes went relatively un-examined.

Otherwise I thought it was a pretty solid addition to the scientists go adventuring sort of genre. At least it's now over a hundred years old, which certainly isn't an excuse that all colonialist feminist science adventures can use. The fact that this book is decidedly written from some sort of feminist perspective really set it apart from any other science adventure novels that I have read that is not contemporary with me. If you enjoy Dracula, Frankenstein, Jules Verne or Brave New World you might as well give …