The complete works of Katherine Mansfield in 4 volumes
This four-volume edition of Katherine Mansfield’s works, assembled by Series Editor Gerri Kimber and her co-editors, brings together, for the first time, everything Mansfield wrote aside from her letters (which have their own edition).
Volumes 1 and 2 – the fiction – bring together 220 stories and story fragments, expanding considerably on a previous ‘definitive' edition of 85 stories. Arranged chronologically, the reader can trace Mansfield’s progress, month by month from her first schoolgirl story in 1898 to her last complete story in July 1922. Volume 3 redefines Mansfield as a critic, translator and poet, by bringing together all of her poetry (almost 200 poems), her literary translations, her witty, sometimes scorching parodies, pastiches and essays, as well as her many incisive reviews of the novels of the day. The collection attests to the enormous variety of her non-fiction output, some of it published here for the first time. Volume 4 – the diaries – resituates Mansfield not just as a short story writer, but also as an observant diarist, chronicler of her times and an erudite reader of English and European literatures. The size of the volume attests to the variety of personal writings, accounts, and reading notes she produced during her lifetime, some of it unpublished until this edition.
The material presented here has been minutely edited for the first time, with precise historical, cultural and biographical contextualisations. Essential contextual perspectives reveal Mansfield’s evolution as a writer, and the impact of her era on early drafts of her mature writings. A detailed index facilitates cross-reading and referencing for scholars and general readers alike.
Together, all four volumes offer readers the scholarly edition Mansfield’s writing so richly deserves.
Key Features
Fully annotated throughout by leading Mansfield scholarsIncludes material published here for the first timeMansfield’s diaries unexpurgated and chronologically ordered for the first timeComplete collection of her poems brought together for the first time, including many never published beforeTranslations published in one volume for the first time