The Yellow Wallpaper

A short, strange, gripping story that reads in under an hour and stays with you. The narrator's voice is the whole point, and the ending is unsettling rather than graphic. It is about a woman's mental decline, so it is not a comfort read. Draft rating: four out of five. Read it if: you want a classic you can finish in one sitting; you like unreliable narrators and slow-building dread; you are curious how a story can be told as a secret journal; you want something to discuss with a class or book club. Skip it if: stories about a woman's mental decline are a hard line for you; you want a lot of plot: this is one room and one voice; you want a clear, comforting ending.

A full summary of The Yellow Wallpaper, stretch by stretch, with our own counts of paper, creep, woman, John and sleep. Full spoilers, gentle telling. Summary: The Yellow Wallpaper →

It is a short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, told as the secret journal of a woman whose doctor husband tells her to rest. She becomes fixed on the wallpaper in her room, sees a woman moving behind its pattern, and in the end believes she has become that woman.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote it. According to Wikipedia and Wikisource, it first appeared in January 1892 in The New England Magazine.

In the Project Gutenberg edition (ebook number 1952) the story is 6,166 words by our own count, from the first line to the last, without the title or the Gutenberg legal text.