Charlotte Anna Perkins Stetson Gilman (July 3 1860 – August 17 1935) was a prominent American short story and non-fiction writer, novelist, commercial artist, lecturer and feminist social reformer. She is mainly known today for her short story The Yellow Wallpaper, based on her own bout with mental illness and misguided medical treatment.

Gilman was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the daughter of Mary Perkins (formerly Mary Fitch Westcott) and Frederic Beecher Perkins, a well-known librarian, magazine editor, and nephew of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Her father was rarely home, leaving his wife and daughter with his progressive aunts Harriet Beecher Stowe, Catherine Beecher, and Isabella Beecher Hooker.

After studying for two years at the Rhode Island School of Design, she supported herself as a greeting-card artist. She married Charles Walter Stetson, a fellow artist, in 1884. Her only child, Katharine Beecher Stetson, was born in 1884. During this time and throughout her life she suffered from depression, which influenced her writing. She separated from her husband in 1888, divorcing him in 1894. After her divorce, her daughter was brought up by her best friend Grace Ellery Channing, who became Stetson's wife.

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