What do you think?
Rate this book
Katherine Mansfield - The Early Years
A new biography of Katherine Mansfield’s formative years illustrated with photographs never published before. Focusing on the first 20 years of Katherine Mansfield’s life, from her birth in 1888 to her final departure from New Zealand in 1908, this biography reveals the importance of Mansfield’s childhood and adolescent years to her development as a writer and offers unique insights into her New Zealand stories. Gerri Kimber draws on detailed reminiscences of Mansfield’s former school friends and acquaintances, early letters, personal papers, notebooks and family papers as well as on previously unused archive material and photographs. Kimber illuminates Mansfield’s home life and school days, her friendships, first infatuations and sexual experimentation both with young men and young women and reveals the effect Mansfield’s experiences had on her earliest stories. What emerges is a fascinating picture of a feisty and imaginative young girl who would turn into an expressive, non-conformist the unruly Kass Beauchamp who would become Katherine Mansfield, the celebrated modernist writer. Illustrated with more than 120 photographs.
272 pages, Hardcover
Published September 20, 2016
7 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 13, 2017
Katherine Mansfield The Early Years covers her life from her birth in 1888, detailing her family history in New Zealand, up to 1908, when she left New Zealand for the second time, never to return. Kimber lets us see how the early life experiences of Mansfield shaped her fiction. We learn a lot about life in Wellington during the last years of the 19th century up to 1908. The poor and the rich lived in close proximity. There were not enough people affluent enough to send their children to private school so Katherine and her siblings mingled with children from all classes. We see a treatment of the poor kids in what many consider her best story, "The Doll House". Kimber lets us see New Zealand was very much a country of emigrants, even the
Richest residents grandparents left England seeking better circumstances. Kimber lets us see his this produced a more open society than England.
Kimber goes into detail about Mansfield's early romantic and sexual involvements, with men and women. It was fascinating to learn of her affair with a rich beautiful Maori princess. One of her uncles was married to a Maori woman. Learning of the relative comfortable intimacy with the Maori helped me understand the story, "The Kidnapping of Pearl Button".
Mansfield was a lonely child, not really fitting the pattern her parents wanted, graduate from school and marry a nice young man from upper crust Wellington society, have kids and run a house. Part of Mansfield's problem was that she was simply too smart, too curious, overly rebellious to settle into such a role.
In 1903 her father sent her to live in London while going to Queen's college. London was at first a great cultural shock. She met lots of literary and artistic people, had some more romances. She tried her hand at writing stories and became enamored with becoming a professional writer.
After three years in 1906 she returns to Wellington. She realized right away she did not want to spend the rest of her life there, bohemian London called out. Her parents tried to fix her up with nice young men but this never worked out. Kimber ends her wonderful narrative in 1908 when Mansfield returns to London. The rest is the stuff of legends.
Kimber has studied the work of Mansfield for many years. I greatly enjoyed her tying in of various stories to events in Mansfield's life. We see her early closeness with her brother Harold.
There are many images of the natural world in her stories. In the backstreet rooming houses and hotels in which she lived in London and Europe these must have been very fond memories. There is a great deal of spectatorship, train and ship trips.
Katherine Mansfield The Early Years is a marvelous example of a literary biography. Kimber had access to conversations with survivors, previously unused in biographies correspondence as well as fragments of stories not included in her four official collections. There are a good number of previously unpublished photos that alone will make this a must have for Mansfield lovers.
Mansfield was one of the founders of the modern short story, the story of her early years tells how she came to write her very influential stories.
I highly recommend this book to all interested not just in Mansfield, who really must read this book, but in the development of the modern short story. To those who have an overview of Mansfield's remaining years, this book will help you understand her life path, her involvement with John Middleton Murry (I would love to read an account by Kimber of this relationship) and her strength to struggle with her health and financial difficulties.
The prose is elegant, the documentation impeccable without being overly academic
Richest residents grandparents left England seeking better circumstances. Kimber lets us see his this produced a more open society than England.
Kimber goes into detail about Mansfield's early romantic and sexual involvements, with men and women. It was fascinating to learn of her affair with a rich beautiful Maori princess. One of her uncles was married to a Maori woman. Learning of the relative comfortable intimacy with the Maori helped me understand the story, "The Kidnapping of Pearl Button".
Mansfield was a lonely child, not really fitting the pattern her parents wanted, graduate from school and marry a nice young man from upper crust Wellington society, have kids and run a house. Part of Mansfield's problem was that she was simply too smart, too curious, overly rebellious to settle into such a role.
In 1903 her father sent her to live in London while going to Queen's college. London was at first a great cultural shock. She met lots of literary and artistic people, had some more romances. She tried her hand at writing stories and became enamored with becoming a professional writer.
After three years in 1906 she returns to Wellington. She realized right away she did not want to spend the rest of her life there, bohemian London called out. Her parents tried to fix her up with nice young men but this never worked out. Kimber ends her wonderful narrative in 1908 when Mansfield returns to London. The rest is the stuff of legends.
Kimber has studied the work of Mansfield for many years. I greatly enjoyed her tying in of various stories to events in Mansfield's life. We see her early closeness with her brother Harold.
There are many images of the natural world in her stories. In the backstreet rooming houses and hotels in which she lived in London and Europe these must have been very fond memories. There is a great deal of spectatorship, train and ship trips.
Katherine Mansfield The Early Years is a marvelous example of a literary biography. Kimber had access to conversations with survivors, previously unused in biographies correspondence as well as fragments of stories not included in her four official collections. There are a good number of previously unpublished photos that alone will make this a must have for Mansfield lovers.
Mansfield was one of the founders of the modern short story, the story of her early years tells how she came to write her very influential stories.
I highly recommend this book to all interested not just in Mansfield, who really must read this book, but in the development of the modern short story. To those who have an overview of Mansfield's remaining years, this book will help you understand her life path, her involvement with John Middleton Murry (I would love to read an account by Kimber of this relationship) and her strength to struggle with her health and financial difficulties.
The prose is elegant, the documentation impeccable without being overly academic
Displaying 1 of 1 review