KATHERINE MANSFIELD: The Story-Teller

Non-Fiction (Literary Biography) 528 pages

Edinburgh University Press - February 8, 2010

 

'By far the best Mansfield biography yet.' -- Jacqueline Wilson

'Kathleen Jones conveys the living presence of Katherine Mansfield in the present tense, so that one feels her continued presence. … A marvellous, innovative biography.' -- Lyndall Gordon

What emerges with indisputable clarity from Jones's skilful use of her sources is a portrait of Mansfield, stylish and febrile, cigarette in one hand, pen in the other, relishing life, scrutinising it with her keen intelligence, and recording her perceptions in a voice that continues to unsettle and surprise.' -- Pamela Norris, Literary Review

Striking new biography of Katherine Mansfield, the first in 20 years, a compelling probing of her art and fraught, knife-edge life, with new unpublished information.

At nineteen, Katherine Mansfield came to misogynistic Edwardian England from New Zealand, determined to be a writer. Turbulent years lay ahead: an illegitimate baby, two unsatisfactory marriages, a series of affairs with both men and women, and friendships with Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence and other leading literary figures, formed the background of her writing life. THE STORY-TELLER tells of her turbulent relationships with Ida Baker, the woman she called her 'wife', and John Middleton Murry, the man she shared her life with. It also tells the story of what happened to her unpublished manuscripts after her death and how Murry's obsession with Katherine ensured that her reputation was nurtured, even though it ruined his three subsequent marriages and the lives of his children.