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    Katherine Mansfield - The Short Stories - Volume 1
    Katherine Mansfield - The Short Stories - Volume 1
    Katherine Mansfield - The Short Stories - Volume 1
    Ebook105 pages1 hour

    Katherine Mansfield - The Short Stories - Volume 1

    By Katherine Mansfield

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    The short story is often viewed as an inferior relation to the Novel. But it is an art in itself. To take a story and distil its essence into fewer pages while keeping character and plot rounded and driven is not an easy task. Many try and many fail. In this series we look at short stories from many of our most accomplished writers. Miniature masterpieces with a lot to say. In this volume we examine some of the short stories of Katherine Mansfield. She was born on 14th October 1888 into a prominent family in Wellington, New Zealand the middle child of five. A gifted Cello, at one point she thought she might take it up professionally the young Katherine’s first writings were published in school magazines. At 19 Katherine left for Great Britain and met the modernist writers D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf with whom she became close friends. She travelled to Europe before returning to New Zealand in 1906 she began to write the short stories that she would later become famous for. Her stories often focus on moments of disruption and frequently open rather abruptly. By 1908 she had returned to London and to a rather more bohemian lifestyle. A passionate affair resulted in her becoming pregnant but married off instead to an older man who she left the same evening with the marriage unconsummated. She was then to miscarry and be cut out of her mothers will (allegedly because of her lesbianism). In 1911 she was to start a relationship with John Middleton Murry a magazine editor and although it was volatile it enabled her to write some of here best stories. During the First World War Mansfield contracted extrapulmonary tuberculosis, which rendered any return or visit to New Zealand impossible and led to her death at the tender age of 34 on January 9th 1923 in Fontainebleau, France. Many of these stories are also available as an audiobook from our sister company Word Of Mouth. Many samples are at our youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/PortablePoetry?feature=mhee The full volume can be purchased from iTunes, Amazon and other digital stores. They are read for you by Richard Mitchley

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCopyright Group
    Release dateSep 24, 2013
    ISBN9781780005928
    Author

    Katherine Mansfield

    Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp was born in New Zealand in 1888. Her father sent her and her sisters to school in London, where she was editor of the school newspaper. Back in New Zealand, she started to write short stories but she grew tired of her life there. She returned to Europe in 1908 and went on to live in France, Italy, Germany and Switzerland. A restless soul who had many love affairs, her modernist writing was admired by her peers such as Leonard and Virginia Woolf, who published her story ‘Prelude’ on their Hogarth Press. In 1917 she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and she died in France aged only thirty-four.

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    • 5/5
      Touching, sometimes sad, Katherine Mansfield's stories do not leave casual readers indifferent. Her style approaches the sensitivity of Virginia Woolf, whilst using the conventions of the short story. Her incisive criticism applies to the society of New Zealand, as well as the lives and relationships of the characters, in a kind of honest reflection of her thoughts and feelings. The stories are deeply personal or psychological, and may particularly appeal to female readers. However, the author's skills in writing short stories is widely acknowledged and is recognized as a classic of English literature worldwide.This selection of short stories will find its place on everyone's shelves and the stories can be read as and when needed. It is a library essential. Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      Virginia Woolf wrote of Mansfield that 'I was jealous of her writing. The only writing I have ever been jealous of.' What more can I say, absolutely stunning prose.

    Book preview

    Katherine Mansfield - The Short Stories - Volume 1 - Katherine Mansfield

    Katherine Mansfield - The Short Stories 

    Volume 1

    The short story is often viewed as an inferior relation to the Novel.  But it is an art in itself.  To take a story and distil its essence into fewer pages while keeping character and plot rounded and driven is not an easy task.  Many try and many fail. 

    In this series we look at short stories from many of our most accomplished writers.  Miniature masterpieces with a lot to say.  In this volume we examine some of the short stories of Katherine Mansfield.

    She was born on 14th October 1888 into a prominent family in Wellington, New Zealand the middle child of five.

    A gifted Cellist, at one point she thought she might take it up professionally.  However she had a gift for writing that was slowly developing and her first writings were published in school magazines

    At 19 Katherine left for Great Britain and met the modernist writers D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf with whom she became close friends.

    She travelled to Europe before returning to New Zealand in 1906 she began to write the short stories that she would later become famous for.  Her stories often focus on moments of disruption and frequently open rather abruptly. 

    By 1908 she had returned to London and to a rather more bohemian lifestyle. A passionate affair resulted in her becoming pregnant but married off instead to an older man who she left the same evening with the marriage unconsummated.  She was then to miscarry and be cut out of her mothers’ will (allegedly because of her lesbianism).

    In 1911 she was to start a relationship with John Middleton Murry a magazine editor and although it was volatile it enabled her to write some of her best stories.

    During the First World War Mansfield contracted extrapulmonary tuberculosis, which rendered any return or visit to New Zealand impossible and led to her death at the tender age of 34 on January 9th 1923 in Fontainebleau, France

    Index Of Stories

    A Dill Pickle

    The Garden Party

    The Life Of Ma Parker

    Marriage A La Mode

    Mr & Mrs Dove

    Stranger

    An Ideal Family

    The Singing Lesson

    Katherine Mansfield – A Short Biography

    Katherine Mansfield – A Concise Bibliography

    A Dill Pickle by Kate Mansfield

    And then, after six years, she saw him again. He was seated at one of those little bamboo tables decorated with a Japanese vase of paper daffodils. There was a tall plate of fruit in front of him, and very carefully, in a way she recognized immediately as his special way, he was peeling an orange.

    He must have felt that shock of recognition in her for he looked up and met her eyes. Incredible! He didn't know her! She smiled; he frowned. She came towards him. He closed his eyes an instant, but opening them his face lit up as though he had struck a match in a dark room. He laid down the orange and pushed back his chair, and she took her little warm hand out of her muff and gave it to him.

    Vera! he exclaimed. How strange. Really, for a moment I didn't know you. Won't you sit down? You've had lunch? Won't you have some coffee?

    She hesitated, but of course she meant to.

    Yes, I'd like some coffee. And she sat down opposite him.

    You've changed. You've changed very much, he said, staring at her with that eager, lighted look. You look so well. I've never seen you look so well before.

    Really? She raised her veil and unbuttoned her high fur collar. I don't feel very well. I can't bear this weather, you know.

    Ah, no. You hate the cold. . . .

    Loathe it. She shuddered. And the worst of it is that the older one grows . . .

    He interrupted her. Excuse me, and tapped on the table for the waitress. Please bring some coffee and cream. To her: You are sure you won't eat anything? Some fruit, perhaps. The fruit here is very good.

    No, thanks. Nothing.

    Then that's settled. And smiling just a hint too broadly he took up the orange again. You were saying–the older one grows–

    The colder, she laughed. But she was thinking how well she remembered that trick of his–the trick of interrupting her–and of how it used to exasperate her six years ago. She used to feel then as though he, quite suddenly, in the middle of what she was saying, put his hand over her lips, turned from her, attended to something different, and then took his hand away, and with just the same slightly too broad smile, gave her his attention again. . . . Now we are ready. That is settled.

    The colder! He echoed her words, laughing too. Ah, ah. You still say the same things. And there is another thing about you that is not changed at all–your beautiful voice–your beautiful way of speaking. Now he was very grave; he leaned towards her, and she smelled the warm, stinging scent of the orange peel. You have only to say one word and I would know your voice among all other voices. I don't know what it is–I've often wondered–that makes your voice such a–haunting memory. . . . Do you remember that first afternoon we spent together at Kew Gardens? You were so surprised because I did not know the names of any flowers. I am still just as ignorant for all your telling me. But whenever it is very fine and warm, and I see some bright colours–it's awfully strange–I hear your voice saying: 'Geranium, marigold, and verbena.' And I feel those three words are all I recall of some forgotten, heavenly language. . . . You remember that afternoon?

    Oh, yes, very well. She drew a long, soft breath, as though the paper daffodils between them were almost too sweet to bear. Yet, what had remained in her mind of that particular afternoon was an absurd scene over the tea table. A great many people taking tea in a Chinese pagoda, and he behaving like a maniac about the wasps–waving them away, flapping at them with his straw hat, serious and infuriated out of all proportion to the occasion. How delighted the sniggering tea drinkers had been. And how she had suffered.

    But now, as he spoke, that memory faded. His was the truer. Yes, it had been a wonderful afternoon, full of geranium and marigold and verbena, and–warm sunshine. Her thoughts lingered over the last two words as though she sang them.

    In the warmth, as it were, another memory unfolded. She saw herself sitting on a lawn. He lay beside her, and suddenly, after a long silence, he rolled over and put his head in her lap.

    I wish, he said, in a low, troubled voice, I wish that I had taken poison and were about to die–here now!

    At that moment a little girl in a white dress, holding a long, dripping water lily, dodged from behind a bush, stared at them, and dodged back again. But he did not see. She leaned over him.

    Ah, why do you say that? I could not say that.

    But he gave a kind of soft moan, and taking her hand he held it to his cheek.

    Because I know I am going to love you too much–far too much. And I shall suffer so terribly, Vera, because you never, never will love me.

    He was certainly far better looking now than he had been then. He had lost all that dreamy vagueness and indecision. Now he had the air of a man who has found his place in life, and fills it with a confidence and an assurance which was, to say the least, impressive. He must have made money, too. His clothes were admirable, and at that moment he pulled a Russian cigarette case out of his pocket. 

    Won't you smoke?

    Yes, I will. She hovered over them. They look very good.

    I think they are. I get them made for me by a little man in St. James's Street. I don't smoke very much. I'm not like you–but when I do, they must be delicious, very fresh cigarettes. Smoking isn't a habit with me; it's a luxury–like perfume. Are you still so fond of perfumes? Ah, when I was in Russia . . .

    She broke in: You've really been to Russia?

    Oh, yes. I was there for over a year. Have you forgotten how we used to talk of going there?

    No, I've not forgotten.

    He gave a strange half laugh and leaned back in his chair. "Isn't it curious. I have really carried out all those journeys that we planned. Yes, I have been to all those places that we talked of, and stayed in them long enough to–as you used to say, 'air oneself' in them. In fact, I have spent the

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