Pages: 327
Original date of publication: 1921-1928
My copy: 2007 (Persephone)
Why I decided to read:
How I acquired my copy: Persephone subscription, October
2012
Katherine Mansfield wrote the 25 stories in this collection
during the 9 months she spent at Montana sur Sierre in Switzerland, seriously
ill with tuberculosis. The stories are arranged in the order she wrote them,
and many were left unfinished. Some characters are recurring; Mansfield also
gained inspiration from other writers, including Chekhov, Louisa May Alcott,
Virginia Woolf, Henry James, and DH Lawrence.
Mansfield chastised herself for writing “lowbrow” stories
and made jokes about them (“the Mercury is bringing out that very long seaweedy
story of mine ‘At the Bay.’ I feel inclined to suggest to them to give away a
spade an’ bucket with each copy…”); but as the publisher’s note at the end
says, “what choice did she have?” Mansfield wrote herself that she did not
consider herself a good writer. But what we see in Mansfield’s stories is an
interest in human relationships; we also see, in this period leading up to her
death, an increasing interest in mortality. What these stories show is an
interest in the diversity of life, for Mansfield wrote about all types of people
going though all types of situations.
The note at the beginning says that Mansfield would not have
approved of having these unedited stories anthologized, and it’s easy to see
why. Many of the unfinished stories here are more like ideas for stories rather
than fully fleshed out stories. Several of the stories were left unfinished
because Mansfield turned her attention to writing magazine articles in order to
pay for treatment; still, you get the impression that these stories have a lot
of potential. Some of the finished stories were published in Sphere magazine
and are here accompanied by (highly stylized) illustrations.
Extracts of Mansfield’s diary from this time are reprinted
in the publisher’s note at the end of the book, and give the reader a sense of
context. In all, this is an interesting glimpse into the mind of an author who
knew she was dying and yet had one of the most creative periods of her life
(perhaps fueled by the fact that she knew she was dying?). As Mansfield wrote
in her journal, “Stronger than all these desires, is the other, which is to
make good before I do anything else. The sooner the books are finished, the
sooner I shall be well, the sooner my wishes will be in sight of fulfillment.”
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