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Letters and Journals
'Now - now I want to write recollections of my own country. Yes, I want to write about my own country till I simply exhaust my store. Not only because it is a "sacred debt" that I pay to my country because my brother and I were born there, but also because in my thoughts I range with him over all the remembered places. I am never far away from them. I long to renew them in writing.' In numerous letters and journals, Katherine Mansfield recorded her feelings, thoughts and observations about writing, about the New Zealand of her childhood, the Europe of her later years, the people she encountered, the every day and the extraordinary. This classic selection - the only one available that combines material from both her letters and journals - brings together the pieces that most illuminate her character, her life and her stories. Chosen by renowned scholar and acclaimed writer C.K. Stead, they are a lively and informative entree to one of our most gifted writers.
Contents:
1. New Zealand, 1907-8
2. Bavaria, 1909-10
3. England and France, 1913-15
4. Bandol, December 1915-April 1916
5. Cornwall, summer 1916 ; London, 1916-17
6. Bandol again ; Paris, January-April 1918
7. Cornwall, May-July 1918
8. London, July 1918-August 1919
9. Ospedaletti (Italian Riviera), October 1919-January 1920
10. Menton (French Riviera), January-April 1920 ; Hampstead, May-July
11. Menton with Ida Baker, September-December 1920
12. Menton with Murry, December 1920-May 1921
13. Switzerland, May-October 1921
14. Switzerland, November 1921-January 1922
15. Paris, February-May 1922
16. Switzerland again, June-August 1922
17. London, Paris, Fontainebleau, August 1922-January 1923
Contents:
1. New Zealand, 1907-8
2. Bavaria, 1909-10
3. England and France, 1913-15
4. Bandol, December 1915-April 1916
5. Cornwall, summer 1916 ; London, 1916-17
6. Bandol again ; Paris, January-April 1918
7. Cornwall, May-July 1918
8. London, July 1918-August 1919
9. Ospedaletti (Italian Riviera), October 1919-January 1920
10. Menton (French Riviera), January-April 1920 ; Hampstead, May-July
11. Menton with Ida Baker, September-December 1920
12. Menton with Murry, December 1920-May 1921
13. Switzerland, May-October 1921
14. Switzerland, November 1921-January 1922
15. Paris, February-May 1922
16. Switzerland again, June-August 1922
17. London, Paris, Fontainebleau, August 1922-January 1923
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 4, 1977
7 people are currently reading
512 people want to read
About the author
Katherine Mansfield
952 books1,179 followersKathleen Mansfield Murry (née Beauchamp) was a prominent New Zealand modernist writer of short fiction who wrote under the pen name of Katherine Mansfield.
Katherine Mansfield is widely considered one of the best short story writers of her period. A number of her works, including "Miss Brill", "Prelude", "The Garden Party", "The Doll's House", and later works such as "The Fly", are frequently collected in short story anthologies. Mansfield also proved ahead of her time in her adoration of Russian playwright and short story writer Anton Chekhov, and incorporated some of his themes and techniques into her writing.
Katherine Mansfield was part of a "new dawn" in English literature with T.S. Eliot, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. She was associated with the brilliant group of writers who made the London of the period the centre of the literary world.
Nevertheless, Mansfield was a New Zealand writer - she could not have written as she did had she not gone to live in England and France, but she could not have done her best work if she had not had firm roots in her native land. She used her memories in her writing from the beginning, people, the places, even the colloquial speech of the country form the fabric of much of her best work.
Mansfield's stories were the first of significance in English to be written without a conventional plot. Supplanting the strictly structured plots of her predecessors in the genre (Edgar Allan Poe, Rudyard Kipling, H. G. Wells), Mansfield concentrated on one moment, a crisis or a turning point, rather than on a sequence of events. The plot is secondary to mood and characters. The stories are innovative in many other ways. They feature simple things - a doll's house or a charwoman. Her imagery, frequently from nature, flowers, wind and colours, set the scene with which readers can identify easily.
Themes too are universal: human isolation, the questioning of traditional roles of men and women in society, the conflict between love and disillusionment, idealism and reality, beauty and ugliness, joy and suffering, and the inevitability of these paradoxes. Oblique narration (influenced by Chekhov but certainly developed by Mansfield) includes the use of symbolism - the doll's house lamp, the fly, the pear tree - hinting at the hidden layers of meaning. Suggestion and implication replace direct detail.
Katherine Mansfield is widely considered one of the best short story writers of her period. A number of her works, including "Miss Brill", "Prelude", "The Garden Party", "The Doll's House", and later works such as "The Fly", are frequently collected in short story anthologies. Mansfield also proved ahead of her time in her adoration of Russian playwright and short story writer Anton Chekhov, and incorporated some of his themes and techniques into her writing.
Katherine Mansfield was part of a "new dawn" in English literature with T.S. Eliot, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. She was associated with the brilliant group of writers who made the London of the period the centre of the literary world.
Nevertheless, Mansfield was a New Zealand writer - she could not have written as she did had she not gone to live in England and France, but she could not have done her best work if she had not had firm roots in her native land. She used her memories in her writing from the beginning, people, the places, even the colloquial speech of the country form the fabric of much of her best work.
Mansfield's stories were the first of significance in English to be written without a conventional plot. Supplanting the strictly structured plots of her predecessors in the genre (Edgar Allan Poe, Rudyard Kipling, H. G. Wells), Mansfield concentrated on one moment, a crisis or a turning point, rather than on a sequence of events. The plot is secondary to mood and characters. The stories are innovative in many other ways. They feature simple things - a doll's house or a charwoman. Her imagery, frequently from nature, flowers, wind and colours, set the scene with which readers can identify easily.
Themes too are universal: human isolation, the questioning of traditional roles of men and women in society, the conflict between love and disillusionment, idealism and reality, beauty and ugliness, joy and suffering, and the inevitability of these paradoxes. Oblique narration (influenced by Chekhov but certainly developed by Mansfield) includes the use of symbolism - the doll's house lamp, the fly, the pear tree - hinting at the hidden layers of meaning. Suggestion and implication replace direct detail.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
June 10, 2017
I once tried to keep a journal. What I found was that more often than not I was embellishing and embroidering. I wasn’t being particularly honest. It was like I was correcting my experiences rather than recounting them.
Often I had the sense KM was doing much the same in both her journal and letters. There aren’t that many entries when you feel she’s not wearing a mask of some kind and reading her words is a bit like playing hide and seek with her. She’s a chameleon, has a different mask for each of her correspondents. Some of these individuals, like Virginia Woolf, inspire her; others seem to bring out a sentimental fakery in her. You can’t help wishing she and Woolf had exchanged a whole volume of letters. There are beautiful inspired passages and there are rather boring passages too. I first read this when I was very young and ravenous to know more about her. As much as anything it showed me how much I’ve changed in the intervening years: my former wild hearted adulation has hardened into sober respect. The last fifty pages or so when she knows she is going to die are heartbreaking. I remain convinced she would have rivalled Virginia Woolf had she lived another ten years.
Often I had the sense KM was doing much the same in both her journal and letters. There aren’t that many entries when you feel she’s not wearing a mask of some kind and reading her words is a bit like playing hide and seek with her. She’s a chameleon, has a different mask for each of her correspondents. Some of these individuals, like Virginia Woolf, inspire her; others seem to bring out a sentimental fakery in her. You can’t help wishing she and Woolf had exchanged a whole volume of letters. There are beautiful inspired passages and there are rather boring passages too. I first read this when I was very young and ravenous to know more about her. As much as anything it showed me how much I’ve changed in the intervening years: my former wild hearted adulation has hardened into sober respect. The last fifty pages or so when she knows she is going to die are heartbreaking. I remain convinced she would have rivalled Virginia Woolf had she lived another ten years.
September 11, 2013
This is probably the first time that I have read an author’s diary/autobiography before reading any of their literary works. It was quite an interesting experience as, although I’d heard of Katherine Mansfield, I had no idea of her writing style or subject matter. Despite this, I really enjoyed this book. It was a compilation of diary entries, letters Mansfield had written to various recipients, and also her poems. I’m still not sure how likeable Mansfield was as a person but her life was definitely quite interesting.
Mansfield’s sentences were beautiful and poetic at times, especially the ones depicting nature. She travelled quite widely and it seems what she liked to do more than anything was look outside the window.
“The wind with light, faint footfalls walks over the sea: the water rings against the shore, like a bell, striking softly.”
I found Mansfield to be brave and adventurous. She lived at the beginning of the 20th Century yet seems to have been quite a progressive woman.
“I feel that I do now realise, dimly, what women in the future will be capable of. They truly as yet have never had their chance. Talk of our enlightened days and our emancipated country - pure nonsense! We are firmly held with the self-fashioned chains of slavery.”
Throughout the collection, she is witty, passionate and acerbic at times . For example, these are her thoughts on French cuisine: - “How much better than these thrifty French, whose flower gardens are nothing but potential salad bowls. There’s not a leaf in France that you can’t “faire une infusion avec’, not a blade that isn’t ‘bon pour la cuisine.’”
It was interesting to read her thoughts on literature. She was a great reader. She also personally knew a lot of famous writers. For example, she was a friend of DH Lawrence and the character of Gudrun in Lawrence’s Women in Love (a book which I really disliked) was supposedly modelled after Mansfield.
Mansfield was also very honest she was about her dislike for various writers and their works. Take, for example, what she said about George Bernard Shaw:
“There’s no getting over it: he’s a kind of concierge in the house of literature – sits in a glass case, sees everything, knows everything, examines the letters, cleans the stairs, but has no part in the life that is going on." (ouch!)
She also gives some advice to those people who want to read James Joyce’s Ulysses:
“About Joyce- Don’t read it unless you are going to really worry about it. It’s no joke. It’s fearfully difficult and obscure and one needs to have a really vivid memory of the Odyssey and of English literature to make it out at all. It is wheels within wheels within wheels.”
A very enjoyable read.
Mansfield’s sentences were beautiful and poetic at times, especially the ones depicting nature. She travelled quite widely and it seems what she liked to do more than anything was look outside the window.
“The wind with light, faint footfalls walks over the sea: the water rings against the shore, like a bell, striking softly.”
I found Mansfield to be brave and adventurous. She lived at the beginning of the 20th Century yet seems to have been quite a progressive woman.
“I feel that I do now realise, dimly, what women in the future will be capable of. They truly as yet have never had their chance. Talk of our enlightened days and our emancipated country - pure nonsense! We are firmly held with the self-fashioned chains of slavery.”
Throughout the collection, she is witty, passionate and acerbic at times . For example, these are her thoughts on French cuisine: - “How much better than these thrifty French, whose flower gardens are nothing but potential salad bowls. There’s not a leaf in France that you can’t “faire une infusion avec’, not a blade that isn’t ‘bon pour la cuisine.’”
It was interesting to read her thoughts on literature. She was a great reader. She also personally knew a lot of famous writers. For example, she was a friend of DH Lawrence and the character of Gudrun in Lawrence’s Women in Love (a book which I really disliked) was supposedly modelled after Mansfield.
Mansfield was also very honest she was about her dislike for various writers and their works. Take, for example, what she said about George Bernard Shaw:
“There’s no getting over it: he’s a kind of concierge in the house of literature – sits in a glass case, sees everything, knows everything, examines the letters, cleans the stairs, but has no part in the life that is going on." (ouch!)
She also gives some advice to those people who want to read James Joyce’s Ulysses:
“About Joyce- Don’t read it unless you are going to really worry about it. It’s no joke. It’s fearfully difficult and obscure and one needs to have a really vivid memory of the Odyssey and of English literature to make it out at all. It is wheels within wheels within wheels.”
A very enjoyable read.
January 24, 2024
What a treasure box this volume is! This complex and curious personality springs off every page and I was reading I kept thinking,’Oh, this is Garner, this is Garner’ - meaning that KM observes and records with that exquisite sense of being exactly in the moment, just as Helen Garner does.
Yet, I’ve never warmed to her (Mansfield’s) work, finding her writing rather formal and aloof. I’ve also had this volume in my collection for years and it survives every cull (unlike her complete short stories!). Obviously it’s time to remedy that.
Yet, I’ve never warmed to her (Mansfield’s) work, finding her writing rather formal and aloof. I’ve also had this volume in my collection for years and it survives every cull (unlike her complete short stories!). Obviously it’s time to remedy that.
August 3, 2014
Mansfield's husband apparently transcribed, dated and published almost all he could find of her letters and journals after her premature death from TB in 1923, somewhat against her request. This selection from the large corpus has been made by C K Stead, so it reflects his preferences. He notes that he has included less of her more emotional writing because he didn't feel it was her best. It's hard not to wonder what you're missing out on when reading this book.
Anyway, what you do have in it is a series of reflections on living and writing crafted by a brilliant woman struggling with her work, her relationships and her health. Her sensibilities are timeless and the crisp clarity of the language makes even the most quotidien letter feel fresh. All of this book is wonderful to read, even though Mansfield suffers and struggles.
Mansfield wrote a lot about writing and returns often to the same themes: her need to become the subject she writes about, her requirement that writing be edited to the point where not one word can be cut, and her struggle to do the labour of writing down her stories once they have formed in her mind. I think many writers will empathise!
As well as her own work, she reflected on that of authors such as Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Joyce, and especially of Chekhov. One of her most interesting notes on him says "[he] made a mistake in thinking that if he had had more time he would have written more fully, described the rain, and the doctor, and the midwife, and the doctor having tea. The truth is one can only get so much in a story; there is always a sacrifice... It's always a kind of race to get in as much as one can before it disappears"
She also wrote about authors she knew personally such as Virginia Woolf and DH Lawrence, who she had a very turbulent friendship with. She is often fiercely critical of his behaviour and his work, but towards the end of her life she wrote more positively saying "even what one objects to is a sign of life in him".
Anyway, what you do have in it is a series of reflections on living and writing crafted by a brilliant woman struggling with her work, her relationships and her health. Her sensibilities are timeless and the crisp clarity of the language makes even the most quotidien letter feel fresh. All of this book is wonderful to read, even though Mansfield suffers and struggles.
Mansfield wrote a lot about writing and returns often to the same themes: her need to become the subject she writes about, her requirement that writing be edited to the point where not one word can be cut, and her struggle to do the labour of writing down her stories once they have formed in her mind. I think many writers will empathise!
As well as her own work, she reflected on that of authors such as Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Joyce, and especially of Chekhov. One of her most interesting notes on him says "[he] made a mistake in thinking that if he had had more time he would have written more fully, described the rain, and the doctor, and the midwife, and the doctor having tea. The truth is one can only get so much in a story; there is always a sacrifice... It's always a kind of race to get in as much as one can before it disappears"
She also wrote about authors she knew personally such as Virginia Woolf and DH Lawrence, who she had a very turbulent friendship with. She is often fiercely critical of his behaviour and his work, but towards the end of her life she wrote more positively saying "even what one objects to is a sign of life in him".
June 18, 2020
But warm, eager, living life - to be rooted in life - to learn, to desire, to know, to feel, to think, to act. That is what I want. And nothing less. That is what I must try for.'
It's hard to evaluate these letters and journals from KM since they were selected by John Middleton Murry who destroyed writings that didn't fit his own idea of what KM's legacy should be. Not least, they play down her ambiguous relationship with JMM himself, her flirtations and affairs, but also perhaps the extent to which they failed each other. In that sense, it's worth reading these extracts alongside a biography.
What comes through is KM's lovely writing as well as a somewhat mediated image of her as a tragic heroine (and I can't help thinking how that reflects on JMM himself... as I suspect he did). What we don't really find here is the KM who could also be malicious and spiteful, who raged, who whined at times, who felt entitled to more than she had.
The journals are a mixture of diary entries along with jottings for her fiction, unposted letters, thoughts on her reading. At times we can trace ideas and images that make their way into her stories. Most importantly, we get a strong sense of voice: KM is always characterful, and even when she's suffering, in pain, at her most vulnerable, there's a coolly analytical side of her that we can feel watching, ready to use this material in her work. I just wish we had access to her journals in original, unmediated form.
September 29, 2024
"How hard it is to escape from places. However carefully one goes they hold you - you leave little bits of yourself fluttering on the fences - little rags and shreds of your very life."
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May 18, 2023“But Joyce is (if only Pound didn’t think so too) immensely important”
So glad to learn my favorite author and I both love Joyce and hate Pound
So glad to learn my favorite author and I both love Joyce and hate Pound
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October 16, 2023Want to look thru her eyes. Her writing like a magic 8 ball to me 💘
August 28, 2013
I didn’t really know too much about Katherine Mansfield until earlier this year, when I noticed that her name kept cropping up in books I was reading. Then a book group that I participate in picked the book Mansfield by C.K. Stead, which is a fictionalised account of Katherine’s life, to read one month. I wasn’t entirely sure about that book (please see my post HERE), but it is only since reading the Letters and Journals, that a few pieces have slotted into place. Katherine Mansfield was originally from New Zealand, but spent a lot of her time in England and France, where she felt that she completed all of her best writing. She became famous mainly for her short stories, but also for her friendships with other literary persons such as D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf, the latter being responsible for publishing some of her work. She contracted tuberculosis, which plagued her and left her bed-ridden at times, and led to her death at the untimely age of 34.
Unfortunately, I cannot really comment on Mansfield’s short fiction, haven’t not read any of it at the moment, but I plan to change this very soon. From her letters to her second husband Murry, and her journal entries, she comes across as a bright, vivacious, and entertaining person, with a beautifully descriptive way with language, even in her own private words. I particularly love the poem she wrote about her beloved brother, Leslie “Chummie” Beauchamp after he was killed in the war, fighting in France. The ending lines are particularly poignant:
By the remembered stream my brother stands
Waiting for me with berries in his hands…
“These are my body. Sister, take and eat.”
I think Katherine was an incredibly complex yet interesting person on the whole. She was clearly passionate about the people she loved, but appeared to be slightly flighty, and could switch loyalties as she chose. She separated from Murry a few times, although he certainly was the love of her life, and had some brief affairs which she seemed to plunge into feet first. I loved reading about her friendship with D.H. Lawrence, who used Katherine as his inspiration for Gudrun in his novel Women In Love, his fiery personality and tempestuous partnership with his wife was fascinating to read about. Although I did enjoy the writings of Katherine Mansfield, I probably wouldn’t read this book again, in parts it was fairly disjointed and difficult to take in, although I appreciate that sometimes it’s incredibly difficult to place letters in exact sequence of events! I will definitely try and slot in some of her work, as she seems to have captured my interest.
Please see my full review at http://www.bibliobeth.wordpress.com
Unfortunately, I cannot really comment on Mansfield’s short fiction, haven’t not read any of it at the moment, but I plan to change this very soon. From her letters to her second husband Murry, and her journal entries, she comes across as a bright, vivacious, and entertaining person, with a beautifully descriptive way with language, even in her own private words. I particularly love the poem she wrote about her beloved brother, Leslie “Chummie” Beauchamp after he was killed in the war, fighting in France. The ending lines are particularly poignant:
By the remembered stream my brother stands
Waiting for me with berries in his hands…
“These are my body. Sister, take and eat.”
I think Katherine was an incredibly complex yet interesting person on the whole. She was clearly passionate about the people she loved, but appeared to be slightly flighty, and could switch loyalties as she chose. She separated from Murry a few times, although he certainly was the love of her life, and had some brief affairs which she seemed to plunge into feet first. I loved reading about her friendship with D.H. Lawrence, who used Katherine as his inspiration for Gudrun in his novel Women In Love, his fiery personality and tempestuous partnership with his wife was fascinating to read about. Although I did enjoy the writings of Katherine Mansfield, I probably wouldn’t read this book again, in parts it was fairly disjointed and difficult to take in, although I appreciate that sometimes it’s incredibly difficult to place letters in exact sequence of events! I will definitely try and slot in some of her work, as she seems to have captured my interest.
Please see my full review at http://www.bibliobeth.wordpress.com
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April 14, 2024“On my bed at night there is a copy of Shakespeare, a copy of Chaucer, an automatic pistol and a black muslin fan. This is my whole little world…”
“And another thing is the longer I live the more I turn to New Zealand. I thank God I was born in New Zealand. A young country is a real heritage, though it takes one time to recognise it. But New Zealand is in my very bones. What wouldn’t I give to have a look at it!”
“And another thing is the longer I live the more I turn to New Zealand. I thank God I was born in New Zealand. A young country is a real heritage, though it takes one time to recognise it. But New Zealand is in my very bones. What wouldn’t I give to have a look at it!”
June 16, 2020
This was my first contact with KM and I fell in love with her. She had such a tragic life, yet managed to pack so much into it. Visiting her home in Wellington, NZ, and understanding where she came from was a fantastic thing to have done, as it put her life into a very different perspective. She is buried near Fontainebleau, south of Paris.
April 13, 2021
I was underwhelmed. I confess to not having read any other Mansfield; consequently, I am better informed about her than I was. Her descriptive writing can be very fine, and she does nostalgia rather well: but I was uninterested in the minutiae of her life anf her men, and abandoned it before the end.
December 21, 2020
a wonderful brilliant mind ♡
January 27, 2023
No. Sanctimonious middle class whingers.
April 25, 2019
Maybe I should have better started with one of her novels. In this I found her often annoying.
#NonFictionChallenge
#translated
#NonFictionChallenge
#translated
March 3, 2022
i read this for the same reason i read Short Stories: i'm writing a comparative essay on gertrude stein's objects and needed another author to, well, compare. the link in my head was more or less: i read mansfield's "the garden party" years ago and nothing happened there except characters talking about a hat. a hat is an object. objects are what i need. bam!
i'm very happy my mind gave those conceptuals sommersaults (my essay is very happy too--even though at the moment it is closer to a theoretical frankenstein's monster than an actual essay) because mansfield was perfect for the job. reading this was almost infuriating; whenever i needed a quote for a certain point, she would make it in either a letter or a journal entry. i never stopped taking notes, even when the time period was no longer applicable to my essay's focus (it's world war one if anyone's interested). it also gave me the best memories of my time reading The Life And Letters Of John Keats years ago (actually, around the time i read mansfield for the first time). the fact that they both died at a very young age, at the prime of their artistic careers and from the same illness did certainly help to make the link.
i'm very happy my mind gave those conceptuals sommersaults (my essay is very happy too--even though at the moment it is closer to a theoretical frankenstein's monster than an actual essay) because mansfield was perfect for the job. reading this was almost infuriating; whenever i needed a quote for a certain point, she would make it in either a letter or a journal entry. i never stopped taking notes, even when the time period was no longer applicable to my essay's focus (it's world war one if anyone's interested). it also gave me the best memories of my time reading The Life And Letters Of John Keats years ago (actually, around the time i read mansfield for the first time). the fact that they both died at a very young age, at the prime of their artistic careers and from the same illness did certainly help to make the link.
October 16, 2014
A precious glimpse into the thoughts of a woman equipped with an immense gift for creative reflection. This book poetically reminded me how fleeting and short life is and the importance of love and art. You will find bits of yourself in this book as a woman and as an artist/writer. She also philosophically and at times humorously shared her reflections on the great books she was reading. I was able to add some new gems to my reading list and begin to reflect on my own artistic endeavours in a new light.
February 19, 2016
Her writing is so accessible and her descriptions so vivid. Her short life was interesting as she was very much an individual personality but her life was shortened through her own foolishness and stubbornness.
Want to read
September 5, 202229/291
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