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Herland | 
 enlarge | Manufacturer: FQ Digital Classics
Category: EBooks
List Price: $1.99
Buy New: $1.59
You Save: $0.40 (20%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  25 reviews
Sales Rank: 49362
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
ASIN: B001AIBO2O
Publication Date: May 29, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
Herland is a popular classic work written by Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman. This kindle digital edition of Herland has been professionally designed and maintains the quality of the original classic publication. Herland is highly recommended for those who enjoy the writings of Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman and also those discovering the works of Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman for the first time.
Download Description
This is written from memory, unfortunately. If I could have brought with me the material I so carefully prepared, this would be a very different story. Whole books full of notes, carefully copied records, firsthand descriptions, and the pictures - that's the worst loss. We had some bird's-eyes of the cities and parks; a lot of lovely views of streets, of buildings, outside and in, and some of those gorgeous gardens, and, most important of all, of the women themselves. Nobody will ever believe how they looked. Descriptions aren't any good when it comes to women, and I never was good at descriptions anyhow. But it's got to be done somehow; the rest of the world needs to know about that country. I haven't said where it was for fear some self-appointed missionaries, or traders, or land-greedy expansionists, will take it upon themselves to push in. They will not be wanted, I can tell them that, and will fare worse than we did if they do find it.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 20 more reviews...
 Where No Men Exist August 27, 2006
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
In her novel of a positive utopia made up only of women, Gilman gives us a vision of what perfection would be like, if only the inevitable power, money and sex did not get in the way of things. In Herland, there are no men thus eliminating the sex motivations. And they live a highly socialized communal life within which most of the problems of modern society have been conquered or mastered.
The ladies of Herland have been isolated from the rest of the world for about 2000 years and during the early part of that period all the men in their society were killed or died off. This left a society of women only. To go on, they developed the ability to have virgin births, (in the modern wild turkey this exists today and is called Parthenogenesis, where in the absence of male turkeys, they may produce eggs that turn into female chicks) through an unusual biological quirk. But all the offspring are women.
Throughout the book references and allusions to Edward Bellamy's famous positive utopia book "Looking Backwards" are evident. Yet Gilman's treatment of the topic is fresh and interesting in that the element of sex is removed from the utopian environment. In addition, the concept of the story is that 3 men happen to find the utopia and this allows Gilman to engage in a long discussion with those men and the women of Herland; comparing their worlds.
Interestingly, even though Gilman wrote the book in 1915, not much seems to have changed. There is still injustice, greed, hate, love, war, peace and poverty. The book is a virtual wake up call to all societies, especially the Western Developed countries that there are yet things to be done in this world.
The book is recommended to those who are interested in a vision of a better world. While Gilman's vision is an impossibility, as was Karl Marx vision of perfect Communism, nonetheless, it gives us a real reason to think on the bright side of life, as it may yet be possible to achieve.
 Misunderstood April 16, 2006
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
Obviously, many people who read this book -- including most of the reviewers here -- clearly misunderstood Gilman's tone and objective in writing "Herland." The purpose of the book is NOT to say that women are better than men in every aspect of life, or that women can survive without men. Indeed, the inhabitants of Herland realize that without males, their society is incomplete, which is why the three young women are encouraged to court the three male visitors. Gilman portrays two of her three male characters sympathetically and intelligently, and even the chauvinistic one is portrayed as intelligent, just misguided.
Gilman has two purposes, neither of which is to show the 'inferiority' of men. One, she wishes to show what a society would be like if everyone were treated equally. Two, and related, she wishes to show what society were like if people put the greater good above their individual goals. In that sense, Gilman's society is not socialism but more like anarchism -- there IS no central government; Herland operates like a large utopian family, in which everyone's role is equal and everyone has a very important role in society. No one's role is more important than any others, be they male or female.
The reason for the Herlandians' physical besting of the men is to show that women are only 'weak' because they are sheltered, and in turn are sheltered because they are weak; also, while the Herlandians were natural women living in the natural world, the men are essentially 'sheltered' by technology (all of them being specialists in an area) and thus are not physically trained as the women are. It's like a female Olympic runner beating a male who runs for his college in his spare time.
Of course, the book has flaws -- the utopian society of course, is without chink or problem, and Gilman ironically venerates traditional aspects of women, casting them into the stereotype of communal, compassionate, sacrificial mothers. The veneration of 'motherhood' almost religiously is hypocritical, as if every woman desires to be a mother. Predictably, no woman in the history of Herland seems to have a problem with denying self for the greater good, or the lack of tradition, or the taking away of her own children for communal rearing. For that, I have to say that Gilman -- while trying to deconstruct the typical notion of a woman -- inadvertently BUILDS it by assuming that all women have these characteristics naturally.
 A Little Pre-Nazi Fairy Tale March 21, 2006
14 out of 36 found this review helpful
I can't believe all that is wrong with this book. If you really detest men and you haven't a clue how males think or how real societies operate, you might like this story. However, if you have even one foot in reality, you'll find it childish to the extreme.
Author's assumptions
1. Men are the root of all evil.
2. Anything men can do, women can do better (including writng utopian fantasies).
3. Men are unnatural, unnecessary, unattractive, unreformable, and unrepentant.
4. Sex should be non-existant.
5. Science and society works out just the way you want it. (See Kendal Hunter's prior review.)
6. The reader has boundless time to vest in useless novels.
It's important to keep in mind that the book and its ideas were coming into print just as the seeds of Nazism and Hitlerism were planted and being cultivated. Clearly the author's ideas would not have been out of place in that era of eugenics as a way to build an ideal society. Furthermore, in her book, the author glosses over a myriad of 'unpleasant' details fitting of a nazi utopia:
1. The book contains more than a hint of socialist Aryan one race, one ideal elitism.
2. Birth control (!!!) is hinted, which by definition must involve some form of abortion.
3. Capital punishment is hinted as this 'utopian' society's way of getting rid of undesirables.
4. Women would be identically featureless, classless, and (apparently) humorless. By definition, parthenogenesis is not unlike cloning at the ovum level, so all women would be identical, excepting mutants.
5. It left me wondering if even crying babies was too much to be tolerated in this society.
I struggle not to be too hard on a novel nearly a century old, a blueprint for a feminist, socialist utopia devoid of men and apparently anyone else unlike the author. If this were a book about a utopia about race, we would condemn it to purgatory. However, since it only trashes men, we 'liberal women' are expected to swallow it reflexively. Unless you are a woman who pulls out her vibrator whenever you think about killing off men, I can't imagine who the audience is expected to be or why this tale was resurrected.
A number of good science fiction authors have addressed this same topic with superior stories and I would recommend any one of them over this tale that should have remained buried in the trash heap of time.
good service September 23, 2005
1 out of 21 found this review helpful
I got the book in a timely manner and it is in adequate shape
More bourgeoise dreck August 23, 2005
12 out of 25 found this review helpful
Poorly written, feminist drivel conceived by a callow, middle-class mind. It's interesting that despite Gilman's righteous call for equality, she couldn't help but think that utopias would be populated only by those of "good Aryan stock." Yet another sheltered, narrow-minded hypocrite who had no idea of how the world really works, a fool blind to the fact that women are just as wicked as men, just in different ways.
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