Charlotte Perkins Gilman's compelling story of a bright girl becoming woman shows the restrictions and the possibilities of American life a hundred years ago. With ingenuity and persistence, Benigna Machiavelli maneuvres hers parents, her teachers, her friends, and herself toward a better life. Charlotte Perkins Gilman herself is one of the forgotten heroes of the women's movement -as a writer, editor, tireless lecturer, she worked in the tumultuous years before American women got the vote. Gilman was a social critic and Utopian visionary, whose work was praised by G.B. Shaw, Theodore Dreiser, William Dean Howells, and H.G. Wells. Her Wowen and Economics went through nine printings.