Mansfield by C K Stead

Mansfield by C K Stead

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.'

Christian Karlson Karl Stead ONZ, CBE (born 17 October 1932) is a New Zealand writer whose works include novels, poetry, short stories, and literary criticism.[1]

One of Karl Stead's novels, Smith's Dream, provided the basis for the film Sleeping Dogs, starring Sam Neill; this became the first New Zealand film released in the United States. Mansfield: A Novel was a finalist for the 2005 Tasmania Pacific Fiction Prize and received commendation in the 2005 Commonwealth Writers Prize for the South East Asia and South Pacific region. He won the 2010 Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award for 'Last Season's Man'.

C. K. Stead was born in Auckland. For much of his career he was Professor of English at the University of Auckland, retiring in 1986 to write full-time. He received a CBE in 1985 and was admitted into the highest honour New Zealand can bestow, the Order of New Zealand in 2007. In August 2015, he was named the New Zealand Poet Laureate for 2015 to 2017

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780099468653
ISBN 10	0099468654
Title	Mansfield
Author	C K Stead
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Vintage Publishing
Year published	2005-01-06
Number of pages	240
Prizes	Runner-up for Montana New Zealand Book Awards: Fiction Category 2005
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.