Katherine Mansfield (born Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp) is mainly known for her short stories, although she also wrote poetry, and her extensive Notebooks and Letters are a joy to read. Examining the latter gives us a deeper understanding of the stories and demonstrates how much she drew on her own life when she was writing; nonetheless, she successfully maintains an objective distance even when she is projecting a first-person narrator. From the start of her writing career Mansfield was aware of the need to cultivate multiple personalities. In a letter dated 24th April, 1906, she asks her cousin, Sylvia Payne: “Would you not like to try
allsorts of lives – one is so very small – but that is the satisfaction of writing – one can impersonate so many people” (
The Collected4395 words
Citation: Oettli-van Delden, Simone. "Katherine Mansfield's Short Stories". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 29 September 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=34628, accessed 25 April 2024.]
