Benigna Machiavelli

What if a clever girl decided to use Machiavelli's tactics for feminist purposes? That's the audacious premise of this forgotten gem from the author of The Yellow Wallpaper. Young Benigna MacAvelly, named for the notorious political theorist, dedicates herself as a child to doing good through manipulation, persuasion, and elaborate schemes. She starts small, rallying classmates to buy a watch for an impoverished teacher, then escalates to confronting the real enemy: her own domineering father, whose verbal abuse has crushed her mother's spirit. Gilman wrote this satirical novel in 1914, imagining a world where feminine cunning and 'woman's intuition' become weapons for liberation rather than submission. The result is mischievous, sharp, and surprisingly radical: a celebration of strategic thinking as a tool for justice, and a daughter's love as the most powerful force in the world. Benigna Machiavelli is Gilman at her most playful, proving that the best revolutions might begin with an eleven-year-old and a really good plan.