Katherine Mansfield facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Katherine Mansfield
Katherine Mansfield
Born	Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp (1888-10-14)14 October 1888 Wellington, New Zealand
Died	9 January 1923(1923-01-09) (aged 34) Fontainebleau, Île-de-France, France
Resting place	Cimetière d'Avon, Avon, Seine-et-Marne
Pen name	Katherine Mansfield
Occupation	Short story writer, poet
Language	English (New Zealand English)
Nationality	British (New Zealand)
Alma mater	Queen's College, London
Period	1908 – 1923
Literary movement	Modernism
Spouse	George Bowden ​ ​ (m. 1908; div. 1917)​ John Middleton Murry ​ (m. 1918)​
Partner	Maata Mahupuku Edith Kathleen Bendall Ida Constance Baker
Relatives	Arthur Beauchamp (grandfather) Harold Beauchamp (father) Elizabeth von Arnim (cousin)

Katherine Mansfield (born Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp; October 14, 1888 – January 9, 1923) was a famous writer from New Zealand. She is known for her amazing short stories and poetry. Many people think she was one of the most important writers of her time, helping to create a new style called Modernism. Her stories are loved all over the world and have been translated into 25 different languages.

Katherine grew up in Wellington, New Zealand, with her family. She started writing at a young age. When she was 19, she moved to England to continue her writing career. There, she became friends with other famous writers like Virginia Woolf. Sadly, Katherine Mansfield became very ill with pulmonary tuberculosis in 1917 and passed away in France when she was only 34 years old.

Katherine Mansfield's Life Story

Growing Up in New Zealand

Katherine Mansfield's birthplace, Thorndon, New Zealand

Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp was born in 1888 in Thorndon, a part of Wellington. Her family was well-known in the community. Her grandfather, Arthur Beauchamp, was a politician, and her father, Harold Beauchamp, became a very important banker.

Katherine had two older sisters, a younger sister, and a younger brother. When she was young, her family moved to a country area called Karori for health reasons. Katherine remembered these years as the happiest part of her childhood. She even used some of these memories in her short story "Prelude".

The family moved back to Wellington in 1898. Katherine's first stories were printed in her school magazines. Her first story that was officially published was called "His Little Friend" and appeared in a magazine in 1900. She often wrote in her journals about feeling different in New Zealand. She also wrote about how she felt sad about the way the Māori people were treated. In her later stories, Māori characters were often shown in a kind and positive way.

Studying in London and Europe

In 1903, Katherine moved to London to attend Queen's College with her sisters. She was very good at playing the cello and thought about becoming a professional musician. However, she spent more and more time writing for the college newspaper and eventually became its editor. She loved the works of French writers and Oscar Wilde. Her friends admired her lively and charming personality.

At college, Katherine met Ida Baker, who became a very close friend for life. Both women used their mothers' maiden names for their writing careers. Ida Baker became known as LM or Lesley Moore.

Between 1903 and 1906, Katherine traveled around Europe, staying mostly in Belgium and Germany. After finishing her studies, she returned to New Zealand. It was then that she seriously began writing short stories. She had some stories published in an Australian magazine, which was her first paid writing job. This was also when she first used the name K. Mansfield.

Katherine soon grew tired of the quiet life in New Zealand and wanted to be a professional writer. Two years later, she went back to London. Her father sent her money every year for the rest of her life. Later, she wrote in her journals about both loving and disliking New Zealand. She was never able to return because of her illness.

Life Back in London

When Katherine returned to London in 1908, she quickly started living a free-spirited life. She published a story and a poem in her first 15 months there. She married George Bowden in 1909, but she left him on their wedding night.

Later in 1909, Katherine's mother came to London. She sent Katherine to a spa town in Germany called Bad Wörishofen. While in Germany, Katherine learned about the works of a Russian writer named Anton Chekhov, which greatly influenced her writing. She returned to London in January 1910. She then published many articles in a socialist magazine called The New Age. Her experiences in Germany became the basis for her first book, In a German Pension (1911).

Writing and Relationships

Working with Rhythm Magazine

Katherine Mansfield in 1912

In 1910, Katherine sent a story to a new magazine called Rhythm. The editor, John Middleton Murry, liked her writing and asked for more. Katherine then wrote a darker story called "The Woman at the Store".

Katherine and Murry started a relationship in 1911 and later married in 1918. Their relationship was sometimes difficult, and they separated a few times. The famous writer D. H. Lawrence even based characters in his book Women in Love on Katherine and Murry.

The publisher of Rhythm magazine ran away in 1912, leaving Murry with many debts. Katherine used her father's allowance to help the magazine, but it eventually closed. In 1913, Katherine and Murry moved to a cottage in the countryside, hoping it would help Katherine's health. In 1914, they moved to Paris, but Katherine only wrote one story there.

World War I's Influence

Katherine's life and writing changed a lot when her younger brother, Leslie Beauchamp, was killed in October 1915 during World War I. He was only 21 years old. After his death, Katherine often thought about their childhood memories in New Zealand.

In early 1917, Katherine and Murry separated, but he still visited her. Her friend Ida Baker moved in with her. After 1916, Katherine started writing a lot. Many of her stories, like "Mr Reginald Peacock's Day" and "A Dill Pickle", were published. Virginia Woolf and her husband, Leonard, who had just started their own publishing company, asked Katherine for a story. Katherine gave them "Prelude", which was about a New Zealand family moving house.

Later Life and Illness

Battling Tuberculosis

In December 1917, when she was 29, Katherine was diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis, a serious lung disease. She didn't want to stay in a hospital because she felt it would stop her from writing. Instead, she moved abroad to avoid the cold English winters. She stayed in a hotel in France, where she felt sad but continued to write stories, including "Je ne parle pas français". Her health got worse, and she had her first lung bleeding in March 1918.

In April, Katherine and George Bowden's divorce was final, and she married John Middleton Murry. They separated again two weeks later but eventually got back together. In March 1919, Murry became the editor of The Athenaeum magazine. Katherine wrote over 100 book reviews for this magazine.

During the winter of 1918–1919, Katherine and Ida Baker stayed in a villa in Italy. Katherine's relationship with Murry became more distant, and they often lived apart. However, when he visited her during Christmas, it inspired her to write "The Man Without a Temperament", a story about a sick wife and her patient husband. Katherine published her first collection of short stories, Bliss, in 1920. Her second collection, The Garden Party and Other Stories, came out in 1922.

In May 1921, Katherine traveled to Switzerland with Ida Baker to try a new treatment for her tuberculosis. Murry joined her in June, and they rented a chalet until January 1922. This was a very productive time for Katherine's writing. She felt she didn't have much time left. During this period, she wrote famous stories like "At the Bay", "The Doll's House", "The Garden Party", and "A Cup of Tea".

Final Years and Passing

In her last years, Katherine tried many different and unusual treatments for her tuberculosis.

From June to August 1922, Katherine and Murry returned to Switzerland. Katherine finished "The Canary" on July 7, 1922, which was the last short story she completed. She wrote her will there on August 14, 1922. After six weeks in London, Katherine and Ida Baker moved to Fontainebleau, France, in October 1922.

In Fontainebleau, Katherine lived at G. I. Gurdjieff's Institute. She was a guest there and didn't have to follow the strict daily routine. She spent a lot of time with her mentor, Alfred Richard Orage. Her last letters to Murry show her trying to use some of Gurdjieff's ideas in her own life.

Sadly, Katherine Mansfield had a fatal lung bleeding on January 9, 1923, after running up some stairs. She died within an hour, at the age of 34. She was buried in a cemetery near Fontainebleau.

Katherine wrote a lot in her final years. Much of her work was not published when she died. John Middleton Murry took on the job of editing and publishing her remaining stories, poems, letters, and journals.

Katherine Mansfield's Legacy

Katherine Mansfield is still remembered and honored today.

• Many high schools in New Zealand have a house named after her.
• Her birthplace in Thorndon is now a museum called the Katherine Mansfield House and Garden.
• There is a park dedicated to her in Wellington called the Katherine Mansfield Memorial Park.
• A street in Menton, France, where she lived and wrote, is named after her.
• An award called the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship is given every year to a New Zealand writer. This allows them to work at her former home in France.
• New Zealand's most important short story competition is named in her honor.

Katherine Mansfield's life has also been shown in films and TV shows:

• A 1973 BBC TV series called A Picture of Katherine Mansfield starred Vanessa Redgrave.
• A 2011 TV movie called Bliss showed her early life as a writer in New Zealand.

Important collections of Katherine Mansfield's writings and materials are kept in libraries in New Zealand, Chicago, Texas, and London.

Katherine Mansfield's Works

Collections of Stories and Poems

• In a German Pension (1911)
• Bliss and Other Stories (1920)
• The Garden Party and Other Stories (1922)
• The Doves' Nest and Other Stories (1923)
• Poems (1923)
• Something Childish and Other Stories (1924)
• The Journal of Katherine Mansfield (1927, 1954)
• The Letters of Katherine Mansfield (2 volumes, 1928–29)
• The Aloe (1930)
• Novels and Novelists (1930)
• The Short Stories of Katherine Mansfield (1937)
• The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield (1945, 1974)
• Letters to John Middleton Murry, 1913–1922 (1951)
• The Urewera Notebook (1978)
• The Critical Writings of Katherine Mansfield (1987)
• The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield (4 volumes, 1984–96)
• The Katherine Mansfield Notebooks (2 volumes, 1997)
• The Montana Stories (2001)
• The collected poems of Katherine Mansfield (2016)
• Bliss & other stories (2021)

Well-Known Short Stories

Images for kids

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  Katherine Mansfield

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  Katherine Mansfield's birthplace, Thorndon, New Zealand

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  Katherine Mansfield in 1912

See also

In Spanish: Katherine Mansfield para niños