The Cottagette

A story of home, art and the morning that ate the morning

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What happens when the work of keeping a home begins to swallow the work you were born to do?

First published in 1910, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Cottagette is a funny, quietly radical little story about a young artist, an idyllic summer cottage and the kitchen installed in the hope of making her more marriageable.

Soon the cooking, cleaning and endless thinking about what everyone will eat next begin to devour her best working hours. Gilman’s answer is wonderfully unexpected, and still startlingly relevant more than a century later.

This beautifully illustrated BrocanteHome edition includes the complete original story alongside a new Reader’s Companion exploring homemaking, creative identity, the “good woman” trap and the peculiar domestic theft of a woman’s morning.

Inside you’ll find:

• The complete text of The Cottagette
• The Kitchen That Ate the Morning
• Notes on Gilman, domesticity and women’s creative work
• A closer look at the story’s women and its rather splendid hero
• Favourite lines to underline and keep
• Gentle questions for considering your own Cottagette
• A thoughtfully curated further-reading list

Designed as a beautiful 26-page digital pamphlet to read slowly, annotate, print and keep.

For every woman who has ever entered the kitchen for one small task and emerged an hour later wondering who stole her morning.

PDF digital download | 26 illustrated A4 pages