Katherine Mansfield is one of the most famous writers of New Zealand. She is known for collected stories In a Garden Pension. Her short stories, noted for their use of influenced stream of consciousness, are about everyday events in the lives of ordinary women.
Early Life of Katherine Mansfield
Mansfield was born Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp on October 14, 1888, to a middle-class colonial family in Wellington, New Zealand. She was also a first cousin of countess Elizabeth von Arnim. The daughter of a banker, she lived for six years in the rural village of Karori. She had an alienated childhood. Her first published stories appeared in the High School Reporter (1898) and the Wellington Girls' High School magazine (1899).
Student in London
In 1902, aged 14, she moved to London, where she attended Queen's College to study music. A talented cellist, she was not at first attracted to literature. After finishing her schooling in England, Beauchamp returned to her New Zealand home in 1906, as her father denied her to become a professional cello player. She then decided to become a writer and started writing short stories. She rapidly wearied of the provincial New Zealand lifestyle.
Writer in London
Two years later, she headed again for London to pursue a literary career. She led an unconventional life, attracted to both women and men. She got herself pregnant, and was arranged by her mother to stay in a hotel in Bavaria, but miscarried. Her experience inspired her to write stories, collected as In a German Pension in 1911.
Initially, she contributed work to the British literary magazine New Age and then went on to have stories published in various journals. During her life only three volumes of her short stories were published. In a German Pension, which was the first volume, came out when she was 23 and includes mainly satirical sketches of German characters.
Later Years
Mansfield was affected by her brother's death during World War I. She wrote stories drawing on her childhood in New Zealand, published Bliss and Other Stories. This collection is considered to include some of her best writings and is characterized by realistic, sharp and poignant descriptions of people and places.
Mansfield's second marriage was to critic and editor John Middleton Murry, after a long romantic and writing relationship. She died on January 9, 1923, at the age of 34.
List of Books by Katherine Mansfield
- In a Garden Pension, 1911
- Bliss and Other Stories, 1920
- The Garden Party and Other Stories, 1922
Published After Her Death
- The Dove's Nest, 1923
- Poems, 1923
- The Journal, 1927
- The Letters, 1928
Sources:
Biographical Dictionary, edited by Una McGovern, Chambers, 2002
Cambridge Literature in English, New Edition, edited by Ian Ousby,Cambridge, 1993
Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary Goring, Larousse, 1994
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