Presents cutting-edge criticism on the theme of Katherine Mansfield and children What Virginia Woolf called 'Childlikeness' is a facet of Mansfield's personality which permeates every aspect of her personal and creative life. It is present in her mature fiction, where some of her most well-known and accomplished stories, such as 'Prelude' and 'At the Bay', have children as protagonists. It is present in her early poetry, which includes a collection of poems for children intended for publication and it is also present in her juvenilia, where many of the stories she wrote from an early age for school magazines and other publications, feature children. Even as an adult, Mansfield's love of the miniature, her delight in children in general, her fascination with dolls, all feature in her personal writing. Her relationship with John Middleton Murry was characterised by their mutual descriptions of themselves as little children fighting against a corrupt world. Including a newly discovered short story potentially by Mansfield, with an explanatory essay, this volume engages each of these aspects of the child in Mansfield's work and life. Gerri Kimber is Visiting Professor in English at the University of Northampton. Todd Martin is Professor of English at Huntington University and the President of the Katherine Mansfield Society.

The narration delves on the living and values of a large family in New Zealand. With trivial details of characters such as personality, gestures and attitudes, Mansfield has managed to delve into the psychology of characters and produce individuals that instantly capture attention. A must-read....

What Virginia Woolf called 'Childlikeness' is a facet of Mansfield's personality which permeates every aspect of her personal and creative life. It is present in her mature fiction, where some of her most well-known and accomplished stories, such as 'Prelude' and 'At the Bay', have children as protagonists. It is present in her early poetry, which includes a collection of poems for children intended for publication and it is also present in her juvenilia, where many of the stories she wrote from an early age for school magazines and other publications, feature children. Even as an adult, Mansfield's love of the miniature, her delight in children in general, her fascination with dolls, all feature in her personal writing. Her relationship with John Middleton Murry was characterised by their mutual descriptions of themselves as little children fighting against a corrupt world. Including a newly discovered short story potentially by Mansfield, with an explanatory essay, this volume engages each of these aspects of the child in Mansfield's work and life. --

Although Katherine Mansfield was closely associated with D.H. Lawrence and something of a rival of Virginia Woolf, her stories suggest someone writing in a different era and in a vastly different English. Her language is as transparent as clean glass, yet hovers on the edge of poetry. Her characters are passionate men and women swaddled in English reserve -- and sometimes briefly breaking through. And her genius is to pinpoint those unacknowledged and almost imperceptible moments in which those people's relationships -- with one another and themselves -- change forever. This collection includes such masterpieces as "Prelude," "At the Bay" "Bliss," "The Man Without a Temperament" and "The Garden Party" and has a new introduction by Jeffrey Meyers.

This volume offers an introductory overview to the short stories of Katherine Mansfield, discussing a wide range of her most famous stories from different viewpoints. The book elaborates on Mansfield's themes and techniques, thereby guiding the reader - via close textual analysis - to an understanding of the author's modernist techniques.

"There was not an inch of room for Lottie and Kezia in the buggy. When Pat swung them on top of the luggage they wobbled; the grandmother’s lap was full and Linda Burnell could not possibly have held a lump of a child on hers for any distance." The seemingly perfect Burnell family is moving from one house to another, and on the surface, everything appears idyllic. But as the story develops, the tension grows, threating to explode and expose their true nature. ‘Prelude’ (1922) is evidence of Katherine Mansfield’s short fiction genius, and it was the first short story that Virginia Wolf commissioned for her publishing house. Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) was short story writer and poet from New Zealand, who settled in England at the age of 19. Virginia Woolf and D.H. Lawrence were among her literary friends and admirers. She died of tuberculosis at the age of 34.