Aimée Gasston – författare

Includes a literary reflection on Mansfield’s work by award-winning novelist Ali Smith.Katherine Mansfield: New Directions brings together leading international scholars to explore and celebrate the modernist short fiction writer, Katherine Mansfield. Reassessing Mansfield’s life, work and reputation in the light of new research in literary modernism the book maps new directions for future Mansfield studies in the twenty-first century. Drawing on current work from postcolonial studies, eco-criticism, affect studies, book, periodical and manuscript studies, and auto/biographical and critical-theoretical approaches to her life and art as well as new archival discoveries, this is an essential contribution to our deepening understanding of a central modernist figure.

Includes a literary reflection on Mansfield’s work by award-winning novelist Ali Smith.Katherine Mansfield: New Directions brings together leading international scholars to explore and celebrate the modernist short fiction writer, Katherine Mansfield. Reassessing Mansfield’s life, work and reputation in the light of new research in literary modernism the book maps new directions for future Mansfield studies in the twenty-first century. Drawing on current work from postcolonial studies, eco-criticism, affect studies, book, periodical and manuscript studies, and auto/biographical and critical-theoretical approaches to her life and art as well as new archival discoveries, this is an essential contribution to our deepening understanding of a central modernist figure.

During Katherine Mansfield's life she experienced the effects of abortion, miscarriage, gonorrhoea, peritonitis, rheumatism and tuberculosis, and would take up a peripatetic existence constantly in search of more favourable climates. The First World War of 1914 1918 and the influenza pandemic of 1918 20 informed the zeitgeist of her times. This volume of essays explores the extent to which this resonant context of disease and death shaped Mansfield's literary output and her modes of thinking. Illness both stimulated and limited Mansfield's creativity she would write to fund her medical care while simultaneously limited by her poor health, writing in 1922: 'The real point is I shall have to make as much money as I can on my next book my path is so dotted with doctors'. As explored in this volume, her personal writings document the increasing influence of tubercular literary predecessors such as Anton Chekhov and John Keats, while her stories function compellingly as dialogue with loved ones who have been lost her brother, her mother, her grandmother endowing them with life in the process.

During Katherine Mansfield's life she experienced the effects of abortion, miscarriage, gonorrhoea, peritonitis, rheumatism and tuberculosis, and would take up a peripatetic existence constantly in search of more favourable climates. The First World War of 1914 1918 and the influenza pandemic of 1918 20 informed the zeitgeist of her times. This volume of essays explores the extent to which this resonant context of disease and death shaped Mansfield's literary output and her modes of thinking. Illness both stimulated and limited Mansfield's creativity she would write to fund her medical care while simultaneously limited by her poor health, writing in 1922: 'The real point is I shall have to make as much money as I can on my next book my path is so dotted with doctors'. As explored in this volume, her personal writings document the increasing influence of tubercular literary predecessors such as Anton Chekhov and John Keats, while her stories function compellingly as dialogue with loved ones who have been lost her brother, her mother, her grandmother endowing them with life in the process.

Katherine Mansfield's complicated relationship with London began in 1903, when her parents sent her and her two older sisters from New Zealand to Queen's College in Harley Street to be educated, and where they remained until the summer of 1906. As soon as she was back in Wellington, she longed to return, her parents finally agreeing to her returning to London to forge a career as a writer, no longer 'Kathleen Beauchamp' but 'Katherine Mansfield'. As an adult, Mansfield had a love/hate relationship with London, but it remained central to her literary career. Mansfield became part of a literary couple with John Middleton Murry, and together they forged connections with most of the important writers in London at that time, thanks to their editorship of several little magazines and their own published work. As the symptoms of Mansfield's tuberculosis increased, and she spent more and more time away from England, seeking a healthier climate, life in London became a series of brief sojourns. It remained, however, at the heart of her literary life until her early death.This book combines a range of cutting-edge scholarship on themes including Mansfield's school life, telephony, the weather, literary sources and influences, music, and hotels, also including reviews of relevant publications in the field, a diverse range of creative writing, and the first publication of notes by Mansfield's early friend and contemporary in London, Margaret Wishart.

Katherine Mansfield's astute eye for power imbalances, including those that are gendered, is apparent across her fiction. Her working life was also fraught with the types of material needs set out by Virginia Woolf in A Room of One's Own, published after Mansfield's death in 1929. Although the young Mansfield decided she 'could not be a suffragette' (in a letter of 17 September 1908 to Garnet Trowell), her work often addresses social injustices with portrayals of characters who are hemmed in by circumstance and reaching toward a sense of personal freedom and authenticity. This volume comprises a number of essays by Mansfield specialists on the theme of 'Katherine Mansfield's Women', in addition to a diverse range of creative writing and a reassessment of J. D. Fergusson's enigmatic portrait of a woman, titled Poise. By looking at the place of women in both her personal writings and fiction, it explores the textual and cultural aspects of Katherine Mansfield and the female experience in all its contexts.

Katherine Mansfield’s astute eye for power imbalances, including those that are gendered, is apparent across her fiction. Her working life was also fraught with the types of material needs set out by Virginia Woolf in A Room of One’s Own, published after Mansfield’s death in 1929. Although the young Mansfield decided she ‘could not be a suffragette’ (in a letter of 17 September 1908 to Garnet Trowell), her work often addresses social injustices with portrayals of characters who are hemmed in by circumstance and reaching toward a sense of personal freedom and authenticity. This volume comprises a number of essays by Mansfield specialists on the theme of ‘Katherine Mansfield’s Women’, in addition to a diverse range of creative writing and a reassessment of J. D. Fergusson’s enigmatic portrait of a woman, titled Poise. By looking at the place of women in both her personal writings and fiction, it explores the textual and cultural aspects of Katherine Mansfield and the female experience in all its contexts.

This book reappraises the philosophical value of short fiction by Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield and Elizabeth Bowen, examining the stories through the lens of specific everyday objects.