Description
The compelling and intimate story of one of the world's foremost short story writers Weaving together intimate details from Katherine Mansfield's letters and journals with the writings of her friends and acquaintances, Kathleen Jones creates a captivating drama of this fragile yet feisty author: her life, loves and passion for writing. The story takes us beyond Mansfield's death in 1923 to explore the life of her husband, John Middleton Murry - and his relationship with three further wives - as he manipulated the posthumous publication of Mansfield's unpublished work. In this vivid portrayal of one of the world's foremost short story writers, the first new biography for a quarter of a century, Kathleen Jones crafts an intriguing narrative of Katherine Mansfield's relationships, illnesses and creativity.
About the Author
Born and brought up on a hill farm in the north of England, Kathleen Jones read law and then English Literature at university before specialising in early women writers - work that culminated in A Glorious Fame, the life of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle. She spent several years in Africa and the Middle East - where she worked in English broadcasting - before returning home. Her published work includes radio journalism, articles for magazines and newspapers, short fiction and eleven books - a mixture of biography, general non-fiction and poetry. Her biographies include:- A Passionate Sisterhood (Virago) - an account of the lives of the women who lived with the 'lake poets', which Sue Limb described as 'a fascinating, marvellous, utterly absorbing book ... the stuff your English teacher never told you.': Learning not to be First, a life of the Victorian poet Christina Rossetti (OUP) which was Doris Lessing's 'book of the year', and a biography of Catherine Cookson (Time Warner). Kathleen lives in Cumbria where she writes full time. She has taught creative writing in a number of colleges and universities and is currently a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Lancaster University. Further information at: www.kathleenjones.co.uk
Reviews
Kathleen Jones conveys the living presence of Katherine Mansfield in the present tense, so that one feels, along with her all-time words, her continued presence. She conveys the full complexity of Mansfield's character with understanding and without bias - what a feat given how manifold it is. What Middleton Murry made of her has a parallelled fascination; the contrasts of the living reality and the purified legend, an ephemeral construct appropriately narrated in the past tense, were striking. A marvellous, innovative biography. -- Lyndall Gordon, Biographer A compelling narrative of a writer's passion for her work, her growth to maturity and the extraordinary trajectory which took a plump, awkward, rebellious little girl from a rigidly conventional family halfway across the world and into a culture of artistic, social and sexual experimentation. -- Helen Dunmore, novelist I read it with huge enjoyment - I think it's by far the best Katherine Mansfield biography yet - giving a truthful but still sympathetic portrait. -- Jacqueline Wilson, novelist & patron of the Katherine Mansfield Society Jones has brought to the work a scholar's regard for fact, a novelist's regard for form, and a poet's regard for cadence. The test of a good literary biography is whether it makes you want to reacquaint yourself with the author's writing. This biography does just that. -- Sarah Sandley, Honorary Chair of the Katherine Mansfield Society Jones ! writes with insight and verve, and an intelligent sympathy as her story is set out against those overlapping literary and social worlds the writer passes through ! A mass of new material unavailable to earlier biographers makes this new telling richly detailed and compelling. -- Vincent O'Sullivan, co-editor of The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield 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
Book Information
ISBN 9780748650651
Author Kathleen Jones
Format Paperback
Page Count 528
Imprint Edinburgh University Press
Publisher Edinburgh University Press
Weight(grams) 822g
About the Author
Born and brought up on a hill farm in the north of England, Kathleen Jones read law and then English Literature at university before specialising in early women writers - work that culminated in A Glorious Fame, the life of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle. She spent several years in Africa and the Middle East - where she worked in English broadcasting - before returning home. Her published work includes radio journalism, articles for magazines and newspapers, short fiction and eleven books - a mixture of biography, general non-fiction and poetry. Her biographies include:- A Passionate Sisterhood (Virago) - an account of the lives of the women who lived with the 'lake poets', which Sue Limb described as 'a fascinating, marvellous, utterly absorbing book ... the stuff your English teacher never told you.': Learning not to be First, a life of the Victorian poet Christina Rossetti (OUP) which was Doris Lessing's 'book of the year', and a biography of Catherine Cookson (Time Warner). Kathleen lives in Cumbria where she writes full time. She has taught creative writing in a number of colleges and universities and is currently a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Lancaster University. Further information at: www.kathleenjones.co.uk
Reviews
Kathleen Jones conveys the living presence of Katherine Mansfield in the present tense, so that one feels, along with her all-time words, her continued presence. She conveys the full complexity of Mansfield's character with understanding and without bias - what a feat given how manifold it is. What Middleton Murry made of her has a parallelled fascination; the contrasts of the living reality and the purified legend, an ephemeral construct appropriately narrated in the past tense, were striking. A marvellous, innovative biography. -- Lyndall Gordon, Biographer A compelling narrative of a writer's passion for her work, her growth to maturity and the extraordinary trajectory which took a plump, awkward, rebellious little girl from a rigidly conventional family halfway across the world and into a culture of artistic, social and sexual experimentation. -- Helen Dunmore, novelist I read it with huge enjoyment - I think it's by far the best Katherine Mansfield biography yet - giving a truthful but still sympathetic portrait. -- Jacqueline Wilson, novelist & patron of the Katherine Mansfield Society Jones has brought to the work a scholar's regard for fact, a novelist's regard for form, and a poet's regard for cadence. The test of a good literary biography is whether it makes you want to reacquaint yourself with the author's writing. This biography does just that. -- Sarah Sandley, Honorary Chair of the Katherine Mansfield Society Jones ! writes with insight and verve, and an intelligent sympathy as her story is set out against those overlapping literary and social worlds the writer passes through ! A mass of new material unavailable to earlier biographers makes this new telling richly detailed and compelling. -- Vincent O'Sullivan, co-editor of The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield 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
Book Information
ISBN 9780748650651
Author Kathleen Jones
Format Paperback
Page Count 528
Imprint Edinburgh University Press
Publisher Edinburgh University Press
Weight(grams) 822g
