Katherine Mansfield

From Free net encyclopedia

Katherine Mansfield (born Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp October 14, 1888 in New Zealand; died January 9, 1923) was a famous author.

Contents

[edit]

Early life

Born into a socially prominent Wellington family, Katherine's first published stories were in the High School Reporter, the Wellington Girls' High School magazine, in 1898 and 1899. Beauchamp moved to London in 1902. She lived in Wellington, and went to school in London. A talented cellist, she was not at first attracted to literature, and after finishing her schooling in England, she returned to her New Zealand home in 1906. Weary of the provincial New Zealand lifestyle, Beauchamp returned to London two years later.

[edit]

Serious writing

She returned to London in 1906 and stayed until 1908. It was upon her return to London that Katherine Beauchamp began writing short stories and entered London's cultural circles, where she met such contemporaries as D. H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf.

At this time, she became pregnant by a family friend from New Zealand, Garnet Trowell, a shy violinist (she miscarried in 1909); her mother had her sent to Bavaria. It is not apparent whether this action was taken because of Annie Beauchamp's knowledge of the pregnancy of her daughter, or because she suspected that Katherine was putting into practice the lesbian tendencies (she had an earlier history of lesbianism) that had so shocked the family in her adolescence. During this time she had two passionate lesbian relationships, one with artist Edith Kathleen Bendall, and another with her schoolmate Maata Mahupuku, (Martha Grace). [1]

While in Bavaria, Katherine suffered a miscarriage, apparently brought on by lifting her trunk off the top of a wardrobe. Back in England, her work drew the attention of several publishing houses, and Beauchamp took on the pen-name Katherine Mansfield upon the publication of her first collection of short stories, In a German Pension, in 1911. She also contracted gonorrhoea around this time, an event that was to plague her with arthritic pain for the rest of her short life, as well as to make her view herself as a 'soiled' woman.

Discouraged by the volume's lack of success, Mansfield met and moved in with her future husband, fellow writer John Middleton Murry. Though she continued writing between her first and second collections ("Prelude", 1918), she rarely published her work, and sank into depression. Her health declined further after a near-fatal attack of pleurisy when she contracted tuberculosis in 1917. It was while combating the disease in health spas across Europe, suffering a serious hemorrhage in 1918, that Mansfield began writing the works she would become best known for.

"Miss Brill," the bittersweet story of a fragile woman living an ephemeral life of observation and simple pleasures in Paris, established Mansfield as one of the preeminent writers of the Modernist period, upon its publication in 1920's Bliss. The title story from that collection, "Bliss," which involved a similar character facing her husband's infidelity, also found critical acclaim. She followed with the equally praised collection, The Garden Party, published in 1922.

[edit]

Final years

Mansfield spent her last years seeking increasingly unorthodox cures for her tuberculosis. In February 1922, she consulted the Russian physician Ivan Manoukhin. His "revolutionary" treatment, which consisted of bombarding the spleen with x-rays, caused Mansfield to develop heat and numbness in her legs.

In October 1922, Mansfield moved to George Gurdjieff's Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man in Fontainebleau, France, where she continued to write despite her failing health. After publishing an additional two volumes, one of poetry, and the other short stories, Mansfield suffered a fatal pulmonary hemorrhage and died suddenly in January 1923. She was buried in a cemetery in the Fontainebleau District in the town of Avon.

Mansfield proved to be a prolific writer in the final years of her life, and much of her prose and poetry remained unpublished at her death. Murry took on the task of editing and publishing her works.

His efforts resulted in two additional volumes of short stories in 1924 (Something Childish) and 1930 (The Aloe), as well as three volumes of Mansfield's previously unpublished letters and journals. A collection of unfinished works came nine years later.

[edit]

Legacy

Katherine Mansfield is widely considered one of the best short story writers of her period. A number of her works, including "Miss Brill", "Prelude" and later works such as "The Fly," are frequently collected in short story anthologies. Mansfield also proved ahead of her time in her adoration of Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, and incorporated some of his themes and techniques into her writing. The fact that Mansfield died relatively young only added to her legacy.

[edit]

Selected bibliography

[edit]

See also

[edit]

External links

es:Katherine Mansfield eo:Katherine MANSFIELD fr:Katherine Mansfield he:קתרין מנספילד ja:キャサリン・マンスフィールド pt:Katherine Mansfield sv:Katherine Mansfield

Retrieved from "http://www.netipedia.com/index.php/Katherine_Mansfield"