Mansfield: A Novel

'A vivid and engrossing historical novel' Daily Telegraph Spanning three years in the life of the writer Katherine Mansfield during the First World War, this novel follows the ups and downs of her relationship with Jack Middleton Murry and her struggle to write the "new kind of fiction" which she felt the times demanded. She is restless, constantly on the move, in and out of London, to and from France, even, once, into the war zone to be with her French lover, novelist Francis Carco. For a short time, Mansfield is able to behave as though the war is merely "background", but her ardent relationship with her brother, who arrives from New Zealand to fight in France, makes detachment impossible - as does her love for Jack's Oxford friend Frederick Goodyear, also a soldier. The war's shadow remorselessly darkens all their lives, but only increases Mansfield's determination to break through as a writer. While sticking scrupulously to what is known about Mansfield's life and those of her friends (a cast that includes D. H. and Frieda Lawrence, Bertrand Russell, Dora Carrington, Lytton Strachey, Aldous Huxley, T. S. Eliot, Lady Ottoline Morrel and Virginia Woolf), this novel is extraordinary in taking the reader beyond the point of biography into the mind, emotions and sensibility of its subject. It is a sharp, subtle and appealing portrait of the person of whose work Virginia Woolf wrote- "It was the only writing I was ever jealous of."

About the Author :
C. K. Stead was Professor of English at the University of Auckland until 1986. In 1984, he was awarded the CBE for services to New Zealand literature. He has published ten volumes of poetry, two volumes of stories and several works of criticism, and edited the Penguin Modern Classics Letters and Journals of Katherine Mansfield (1977). Mansfield is his tenth novel.

Review :
Mansfield's world is marvellously evoked -C. K. Stead has researched his subject with the sureness of a scholar but has written with the imaginative confidence of a first-class novelist. He has an uncanny ability to express the thoughts, and the voice of his young heroine. Mansfield is a splendid achievement. This is a different kind of writing, a writing that tinkers with the trivia of human lives. And ironically, this is where this book succeeds like a miracle, for trivia, passion, the fear of death are the arterial blood of fiction. Fascinating-accomplishes with so much erudition, intelligence and psychological acumen A fine achievement, rich in sobriety and purpose, in warmth and dazzling light. One of [Mansfield's] great strengths as a writer is the interplay between the senses and the intellect and Stead's own prose captures this C.K.Stead has served us the most delicious, exquisitely prepared, delicately spiced Katherine Mansfield one could ever wish for, and the gourmet in me is immensely grateful... After finishing Mansfield I went back through its 246 pages trying to see 'how it is done' and, I must confess, I have no idea. A dearth of adjectives, an extraordinary accuracy of description merely through the use of verbs and nouns, the right intuition of when to comment and when to leave good enough alone, a taste for the right anecdote and a certain Mansfieldean humour that permeates the entire story from choice beginning to measured end: all these things no doubt contribute to build the moving truthful core of this novel, but they hardly explain its perfect workings. This is a highly intelligent and scrupulous work. As an evocation of the period it bears comparison with Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy... Maugham said of Mansfield's stories that 'not the least of her gifts was that which enabled her to give you the heartbreak that lay behind what was to all appearances a casual conversation over a cup of tea; and, heaven knows, that is not an easy thing to do.' Stead has that gift himself, and adds to it an unusual understanding of his characters. You feel Mansfield was just like that; and yet she is also Stead's Mansfield. Stead leaves Katherine Mansfield still alive, still writing and hoping, at the conclusion of this excellent novel. He believes as should we all, that what is important is the life and work of our great writers, and not the manner of their death. His own latest work is a fine achievement, rich in sobriety and purpose, in warmth and dazzling light.