Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield was born in New Zealand in 1888, the third child of a wealthy businessman. Mansfield’s earliest stories were published in her school magazine, but she was not sure that she wanted to be a writer. Instead, she thought about becoming a professional cellist. At twenty, she went to London, because – she said – she was angry about how white New Zealanders behaved to native Maoris. In London, she continued writing while at university and travelled to Belgium and Germany but became ill with tuberculosis, before returning to New Zealand from 1906 to 1908. Arriving back in London, she wrote even though she was ill and worked frantically after 1915, following her brother’s death in World War I. She is now regarded as one of the finest short story writers of her time, although she did not become famous in her lifetime. She died in 1923, when she was only 34.

Articles by Katherine Mansfield

Sixpence

IntermediateFiction

This powerful story is about a worried mother who is unhappy and ashamed in front of a guest at her home because she can't control her young son. Her guest tells her that his father should hit him so, desperate, she asks him to do so. Sadness follows. (1,880 words)

The Garden Party

Upper-IntermediateFiction

One of Katherine Mansfield's finest short stories that highlights the contempt with which the upper-middle class viewed the poor. While preparations for the garden party are tasteful and well-considered, the more important sensitivity to the welfare of their poor neighbours is lacking. (4,165 words)

Life of Ma Parker

Pre-IntermediateFiction

Katherine Mansfield often wrote about the ugliness of middle-class beliefs and lifestyles, but here she tells us about the hard life of an old working grandmother, a good and strong woman, who has lost her grandson but must still carry on… alone. (1,940 words)

The Fly

Pre-IntermediateFiction

Katherine Mansfield’s brother was killed in The First World War and, in this story, the writer shows the feelings of two fathers whose sons were also killed. She considers their different reactions and how they change as the years pass, and cleverly uses the struggles of an unlucky fly to make her ideas clearer to us (1,405 words).

The Fly

AdvancedFiction

Katherine Mansfield lost her brother in The First World War and this story explores the feelings of two fathers whose sons were killed in that terrible conflict. She considers their different reactions and uses the struggles of an unlucky fly to make her dramatic point. (1,860 words)

The Ideal Family

AdvancedFiction

Always a subversive who tried to undermine upper middle class life in the early twentieth century, Mansfield here looks at a successful businessman and head of a seemingly happy family, one evening late in his life. As we learn more about his aims and his disappointments, we start to question whether he has achieved all he set out to gain or lost too much trying. (2,000 words)

The Singing Lesson

Upper-IntermediateFiction

In the early twentieth century, a woman who could not find herself a husband in England was not complete. In this typical Mansfield story, a teacher who is engaged to a younger man gets a letter from him containing unexpected bad news. (1,510 words)