“The mad woman has been used as a trope for centuries by writers, but more often as a walk-on part: we are allowed short, horrifying glimpses of the mad Ophelia and the hallucinating Lady Macbeth, before they are hurried to their deaths; Bertha Rochester escapes her attic prison to cause fires and havoc, and is then put back before she, too, is sent to death. What ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ does is give the mad woman pen and paper, and ultimately a voice of her own. We hear from her, directly and in detail.”

— Introduction by Maggie O'Farrell to The Yellow Wallpaper