Katherine Mansfield And The Art Of The Short Story

This volume offers an introductory overview to the short stories of Katherine Mansfield, discussing a wide range of her most famous stories from different viewpoints. The book elaborates on Mansfield's themes and techniques, thereby guiding the reader - via close textual analysis - to an understanding of the author's modernist techniques.

Discussion of Mansfield¿s writing technique in the early years after her death was initially subordinate to the overwhelming interest in her personality, with the hagiography of her lifeand praise for her personal writing - particularly in France - for many years taking precedence over any consideration of her fiction. However, with the passage of time there has emerged a more balanced and critical viewpoint, with an attempt to remove the saint-like, ethereal, wholly false mask of the author so revered by the French. The aim of this discussion is to illustrate how radical and innovative Mansfield¿s narrative writing would become during her life-time, ultimately placing her at the forefront of Modernist short story writers. Yet even today, there are a few critics who tend to concentrate on the facets of Mansfield¿s personality or her art which tally with their particular literary hypothesis, ignoring what does not, in order to create their particular version of Mansfield the writer. It is not often that one is able to view all the facets which go to make up Mansfield¿s complex body of work. Mansfieldwas that rare thing - a writer exclusively associated with the short story. The notional superficiality of her stories, together with the premise that the short story is perceived to be alesser form, has meant that many critics have viewed Mansfield as a minor writer. It is not known what she might have accomplished had her life not been cut short or whetherher narrative art might have gone in a different direction. Her legacy comprises roughly ninety stories - some incomplete - totalling about 300,000 words. This study offers a detailed consideration of Mansfield's short stories and her work in thecontext of a literary Modernist. Subjects covered include: 'Mansfield's Narrative Technique', 'Use of Literary Impressionism', 'The Incorporation of Symbolism', 'Sexuality as a Theme', 'Portrayal of Children', 'Use of Humour', 'War and Death'.

»The Garden Party« is a short story by Katherine Mansfield, first published in 1922. KATHERINE MANSFIELD, actually Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp (later Murry), was born in 1888 in Wellington, New Zealand, and died in 1923 as a result of her pulmonary tuberculosis at a hospital near Fontainebleau, France. Mansfield left her homeland at the age of 19 and moved to Europe. In London, she established herself as a writer and became friends with Virginia Woolf and D.H. Lawrence. Rumour has it that the latter infected her with the lung disease that became her demise, at the young age of 35.

"The book is, in effect, a revaluation of Katherine Mansfield, throwing new light on her craftsmanship, her artistic credo and her vision of life."--BOOK JACKET.

The first biography of Katherine Mansfields early years since 1933Focusing on the first nineteen years of Katherine Mansfields life, from her birth in 1888 to her arrival in London in 1908 to be a writer, this new biography sheds new light on Mansfields childhood and teenage years as well as on her development as a writer.The biography draws extensively on previously unused archive material, including the research papers assembled by Ruth Elvish Mantz for her 1933 biography of Mansfield, detailed reminiscences of former school friends and acquaintances, Mansfields autograph book, birthday book, her early letters, notebooks and family papers. Using this rich seam of material, Gerri Kimber explores Mansfields home life and school days, her friendships, first infatuations and sexual experimentation both with young men and young women and her travels through the volcanic North Island of New Zealand and examines her earliest published stories which appeared in school magazines. What emerges is a picture of a feisty, mischievous, young girl and an expressive, non-conformist teenager: the unruly Kass Beauchamp who became Katherine Mansfield, the famous modernist writer.Key Features Brings to light a period of Mansfields life previously of little interest to biographersPresents a new image of Mansfield as a child and young womanReveals how her youthful experiences fashioned both her later personality and the content of much of her acclaimed adult writingDiscussion of the biographical elements present in Mansfields New Zealand stories

This is a collection of the 7 best short stories of one of the most iconic female writer ever to have been published, Katherine Mansfield. This selection specially chosen by the literary critic August Nemo, contains the following stories:The Garden PartyThe Daughters of the Late ColonelBlissPreludeAt the bayJe ne parle pas francaisHow Pearl Button was Kidnapped

Reveals how Katherine Mansfield's understanding of art and music shaped and inspired her writingThis volume emphasises the centrality of Katherine Mansfield to the cultural life of her time, illuminating how her love of painting and of music inspired her art. The Fauvist paintings of the Scottish colourist F.D. Fergusson, the music of Debussy, and indeed, of Wagner, all helped to forge a precise aesthetic, founded above all on the intense study and - in the case of music - practice of artistic technique. The essays in this volume explore Mansfield's relationships with the visual arts and with music, bringing to light the way in which these helped to shape the formal qualities of her writing: its beauty of line and intensely musical effects. Mansfield's relationship with Woolf is also strongly in the frame. As befits a volume dedicated to the arts, there is an introduction, poetry and a new short story by highly-acclaimed writers who count Mansfield amongst their chief inspirations.