Book Description

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