Choice 评论

Bauer (Univ. of Wisconsin) has produced a mixed bag in this edition of Gilman's most famous story. Bedford's purpose is to place literary works in a historical context by including relevant cultural documents alongside the primary text, but the usefulness of such promising apparatus is limited in this edition by the absence of a primary research tool--an index--an omission that reduces the volume's potential benefit to the reader. In addition, the chronology contains no fewer than five factual errors, continuing to provide misinformation about Gilman that has been perpetuated for years. More troubling is Bauer's decision to include a postmortem photograph of Gilman. To date, biographers had declined to publish this photograph, owned by the Schlesinger Library, and its inclusion here is distasteful, particularly because Bauer does not contextualize the photograph within any discussion of Gilman's death by suicide. On a more positive note, in terms of content and scope, Bauer's volume is vastly superior to Thomas Erskine and Connie Richards's unremarkable edition (1993); it compares well to The Captive Imagination: A Casebook on The Yellow Wallpaper, ed. by Catherine Golden (1992), which also, inexplicably, lacks an index. Appropriate for undergraduate libraries. D. D. Knight; SUNY College at Cortland