Hello, gentle listener, and welcome to nocturnal transmissions, the fortnightly podcast that brings you dark tales both old and new performed by voice artist Kristen Holland.

Oh, I'm just mad about Saffron. Saffron's mad about me. I'm just mad about Saffron. I'm just mad about Saffron. She's just mad about me. I'm just mad about saffron. She's just mad about me. They call me me me

mellow, yellow. Quite rightly, Donovan.

There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot,

but there are others who, with the help of their art and their intelligence,

transform a yellow spot into the sun.

Pablo Picasso.

The source of radiance for this episode's featured story is late 19th century journalist, feminist and intellectual Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

Her story first published in 1892 in New England magazine was rather strikingly inspired by events in her own life.

But I'm afraid I can't say more than that, because, well, spoilers.

So before I go and ruin the fun, let's just jump on in to Charlotte Perkins-Gillman's Immortal Horror Classic.

The Yellow Wallpaper. It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer,

a colonial mansion, a hereditary estate. I would say a haunted house and

reached the height of romantic felicity, but that would be asking too much of fate. Still,

I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it.

Else, why should it be let so cheaply?

And why have stood so long untenanted?

John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.

John is practical in the extreme.

He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition,

and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures.

John is a physician, and perhaps, I would not say this to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind.

...