Katherine Mansfield

by Claire Tomalin

  Extracts from letters appear in The Letters and Journals of Katherine Mansfield: A Selection edited by C. K. Stead, Penguin, 1977.

  None of the editions listed above is indexed. Now at last this situation is being remedied with the admirable The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield edited by Margaret Scott and Vincent O'Sullivan, Oxford University Press. Two volumes have so far appeared, in 1984 and 1987, taking the letters up to 1919.

  3. JOURNALS

  The Journal of Katherine Mansfield edited by J. M. Murry, Constable, London, 1927; Knopf, New York, 1927.

  The Scrapbook of Katherine Mansfield edited by J. M. Murry, Constable, London, 1939.

  Both these consisted of material culled in somewhat arbitrary fashion from a mass of papers. Murry reassembled the material into what he called the ‘definitive edition’ of The Journal of Katherine Mansfield, Constable, London, 1954. Currently available in a Constable paperback edition.

  The Urewera Notebook edited by Ian Gordon, Oxford University Press, 1980. The notes she kept during her camping trip in 1907.

  Many interesting fragments of her journals have been published in Margaret Scott's transcriptions in the Turnbull Library Record, Wellington, New Zealand, between 1970 and 1979.

  4. BIOGRAPHICAL

  The Life of Katherine Mansfield by Ruth Elvish Mantz and J. M. Murry, Constable, London, 1933.

  Reminiscences and Recollections by Sir Harold Beauchamp, New Plymouth, New Zealand, 1937. Very guarded on the subject of his famous daughter; in fact, the chapter on her is written by a tactful ‘literary expert’, not by Sir Harold.

  KATHERINE MANSFIELD: A BIOGRAPHY by Antony Alpers, Jonathan Cape, London, 1953. This has been massively enlarged and altered to make Alpers's second version, The Life of Katherine Mansfield, Jonathan Cape, London, 1980; Viking, New York, 1980. Also available in paperback, Oxford University Press. Everyone who writes about K.M. is indebted to Antony Alpers, who researched for decades and maintained an impressive equilibrium when dealing with rival authorities and rival versions of the truth.

  Katherine Mansfield: The Memories of L.M. by Ida Baker, Michael Joseph, London, 1971. Contains letters and information found nowhere else; but it is sad that Miss Baker did not write her account until she was too old to have reliable recall. Now available as a Virago paperback.

  Katherine Mansfield's New Zealand by Vincent O'Sullivan, Golden Press, Auckland, New Zealand, 1974. Fascinating picture and caption material.

  Katherine Mansfield: A Biography by Jeffrey Meyers, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1978. Excellent research, less good on interpretation.

  Lives and Letters by John Carswell, Faber, London, 1978. Very good on Orage and Koteliansky friendships, but avowedly hostile to K.M. herself.

  5. OTHER WORKS

  John Middleton Murry

  The Problem of Style, Oxford University Press, 1922. His 1921 Oxford lectures, in which he alludes to K.M.

  God, Cape, London, 1925. Contains anecdote about K.M.

  Son of Woman: The Story of D.H. Lawrence, Jonathan Cape, London, 1931.

  Reminiscences of D.H. Lawrence, Jonathan Cape, London, 1933.

  Between Two Worlds, Jonathan Cape, London, 1935; Messner, New York, 1936. Autobiography up to K.M.'s death.

  Katherine Mansfield and Other Literary Portraits, Peter Nevill, London, 1949.

  Katherine Mansfield and Other Literary Studies, Constable, London, 1959. A posthumous publication, with foreword by T. S. Eliot.

  The Letters of John Middleton Murry to Katherine Mansfield selected and edited by C. A. Hankin, Constable, London, 1983.

  John Middleton Murry by F. A. Lea, Methuen, London, 1959; Oxford University Press, New York, 1960. A kindly account by a personal friend and admirer.

  To Keep Faith by Mary Middleton Murry (fourth wife and widow), Constable, London, 1959.

  One Hand Clapping by Colin Middleton Murry, Gollancz, London, 1975; and Beloved Quixote by Katherine Middleton Murry, Souvenir Press, London, 1986. Murry's son and daughter by his second wife fill out the picture of his character.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Sons and Lovers, Duckworth, London, 1913; Mitchell Kennedy, New York, 1913.

  The Rainbow, Methuen, London, 1915; B. W. Huebsch, New York, 1916.

  Women in Love (privately printed for subscribers only), New York, 1920; Martin Secker, London, 1921.

  Touch and Go, C. W. Daniel, London, 1920.

  The Lost Girl, Martin Secker, London, 1920; Seltzer, New York, 1922.

  Aaron's Rod, Martin Secker, London, 1922; Seltzer, New York, 1922.

  The Tales of D.H. Lawrence, Martin Secker, London, 1934.

  D.H. Lawrence: l'homme et la genèse de son œuvre by Emile Delavenay, Klinck-seck, Paris, 1969, 2 vols.; in English D.H. Lawrence: The Man and His Work, Heinemann, London, 1972, 1 vol.; Southern Illinois University Press, 1972.

  D.H. Lawrence and Edward Carpenter by Emile Delavenay, Heinemann, London, 1971.

  D.H. Lawrence's Nightmare by Paul Delaney, New York, 1978; Harvester, Sussex, 1979.

  D.H. Lawrence: A Composite Biography edited by Edward Nehls Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1957–9, 3 vols.

  The Letters of D.H. Lawrence under the general editorship of James T. Boulton, Cambridge University Press, 1979. Four volumes have been issued so far, taking us up to 1924. They supersede Aldous Huxley's 1932 edition and the two volumes edited by Harry T. Moore in 1962.

  Not I, But the Wind by Frieda Lawrence, Viking, New York, 1934; Heinemann, London, 1935.

  The Memoirs and Correspondence of Frieda Lawrence edited by E. W. Tedlock, Heinemann, London, 1961; Knopf, New York, 1964.

  Frieda Lawrence by Robert Lucas, Secker & Warburg, London, 1973.

  Virginia Woolf

  The Voyage Out, Duckworth, London, 1915.

  The Mark on the Wall, Hogarth Press, London, 1917.

  Kew Gardens, Hogarth Press, London, 1919.

  Night and Day, Duckworth, London, 1919

  Monday or Tuesday, Hogarth Press, London, 1921.

  Jacob's Room, Hogarth Press, London, 1922.

  The Waves, Hogarth Press, London, 1931.

  Virginia Woolf: A Biography by Quentin Bell, Hogarth Press, London, 1972; Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1972, 2 vols.

  The Letters of Virginia Woolf edited by Nigel Nicolson, Hogarth Press, London, 1975–80, 6 vols.; Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1975–80.

  The Diaries of Virginia Woolf edited by Anne Olivier Bell, Hogarth Press, London 1977–84, 5 vols.; Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1977–84.

  Virginia Woolf: A Writer's Life by Lyndall Gordon, Oxford University Press, 1984.

  The Autobiography of Leonard Woolf, Hogarth Press, London, 1964 and 1967, 5 vols.; Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1964 and 1967. See especially vols. III and IV, Beginning Again and Downhill All the Way.

  Lady Ottoline Morrell

  Ottoline: The Early Memoirs and Ottoline at Garsington edited by Robert Gathorne-Hardy, Faber, London, 1963 and 1974; vol. I only, Knopf, New York, 1964.

  Ottoline: The Life of Lady Ottoline Morrell by Sandra Jobson Darroch, Chatto & Windus, London, 1976; Coward, McCann, New York, 1975.

  A.R. Orage

  Friedrich Nietzsche: The Dionysian Spirit of the Age, Foulis, Edinburgh, 1906.

  Nietzsche in Outline and Aphorism, Foulis, Edinburgh, 1907.

  The Old New Age: Orage and Others by Beatrice Hastings, Blue Moon Press, London, 1935.

  A. R. Orage: A Memoir by Philip Mairet, Dent, London, 1936.

  Orage and the New Age Circle by Paul Selver, Allen & Unwin, London 1959.

  The New Age Under Orage by Wallace Martin, Manchester University Press, 1967.

  Rooms in the Darwin Hotel by Tom Gibbons, University of Western Australia Press, 1973.

  Lives and Letters by John Carswell, Faber, London, 1978.

  Miscellaneous

  The Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff, Cassell, London, 1890. Now a Virago paperback.

  Savage
Messiah (life of Gaudier-Brzeska) by H. S. Ede, Heinemann, London, 1931.

  The Last Romantic by William Orton, Cassell, London, 1937.

  The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, Allen & Unwin, London, 1963, 2 vols. See especially vol. II.

  Today We Will Only Gossip by Beatrice, Lady Glenavy, Constable, London, 1964.

  The Selected Letters of Mark Gertler edited by Noel Carrington, Hart-Davis, London, 1965.

  Lytton Strachey by Michael Holroyd, Heinemann, London, 1967 and 1968, 2 vols.; Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York, 1967 and 1968.

  The Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters by John Gross, Weidenfeld, London, 1969.

  The Life of Bertrand Russell by Ronald Clark, Cape/Weidenfeld, London, 1975.

  Gurdjieff by Fritz Peters, Wildwood House, London, 1976.

  The First Fabians by Norman and Jean MacKenzie, Weidenfeld, London, 1977.

  Gilbert Cannan by Diana Farr, Chatto & Windus, London, 1978.

  Gurdjieff and Mansfield by James Moore, Routledge, London, 1980.

  Brett by Sean Hignett, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1984.

  T.S. Eliot by Peter Ackroyd, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1984.

  ‘Elizabeth’ by Karen Usborne, Bodley Head, London, 1986.

  Acknowledgements

  Research for this book was begun in the 1970s and interrupted. I should like to express gratitude to the following people who gave me their time, answered my letters, searched their memories or files and in other ways gave me assistance. To some my thanks are, sadly, posthumous.

  Antony Alpers; David Arkelli; Neal Ascherson; Enid Bagnold; Ida Constance Baker; Barbara Barr; Anne Oliver Bell; Professor Quentin Bell; David Blow; Gill Boddy; Professor J. T. Boulton; Margaret Budden; Dr William Bynum; Carmen Callil; John Carswell; Dan Davin; Peter Day; Professor Emile Delavenay; Christopher Edwards; Mrs Valerie Eliot; Faith Evans; Hans Fellner; Michael Frayn; Angelica Garnett; David Garnett; Richard Garnett; Dr A. S. Grimble; Michael Holroyd; Dr and Mrs John Hopkins; Juliette Huxley; Dr Jagodzinski; Professor Frank Kermode; Professor Mark Kinkead-Weekes; Eric Korn; Moira Lynd; Bruce Mason; James Moore; Colin Middleton Murry; Mary Middleton Murry; Rollo Myers; Nigel Nicolson; Mrs J. Nowak; Vincent O'Sullivan; Donna Poppy; Jeanne Renshaw; Susan Rose-Smith; Dorothy Richards (née Trowell); Edith Robison (née Bendall); Margaret Scott; Jackie Simms; Navin Sullivan; Frank Swin-nerton; Sophie Tomlin; Professor Joseph Trapp; Douglas Trowell; Dr Trevor Turner; Karen Usborne; Julian Vinogradoff; Christopher Wade; Professor John Waterlow; and Barbara Webber.

  I should also like to thank the following libraries or institutions: the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington; the British Library; the London Library; the Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin; the Senate House Library, London; the Library of the University of Reading; the University of North Carolina Library at Chapel Hill; the Library of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists; the Wellcome Library; the Swiss Cottage Public Library; the Polish Cultural Centre Library; the Society of Authors; the Cambridge University Press; and the Oxford University Press.

  Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following for permission to reproduce copyright extracts: The literary estates of Virginia Woolf and Leonard Woolf, the Hogarth Press and Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.; A.D. Peters & Co. Ltd (as the literary representative of A.E. Coppard); Laurence Pollinger Ltd and the Estate of Mrs Frieda Lawrence Ravagli (for The Letters of D.H. Lawrence, edited by James T. Boulton, published by Cambridge University Press); the Society of Authors as the literary representative of the Estate of John Middleton Murry, the Estate of Katherine Mansfield (where it applies) and the Bernard Shaw Estate, and King's College, Cambridge, and the Estate of E.M. Forster.

  Cambridge University Press; Jonathan Cape Ltd; Constable Publishers; Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.; Oxford University Press (for The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield, vol. I, 1984, vol. II, 1987, edited by Vincent O'Sullivan and Margaret Scott, copyright © the Estate of Katherine Mansfield, 1984, 1987).

  Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders. The publishers would be interested to hear from any copyright holders not here acknowledged.

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  First published by Viking 1987

  Published in Penguin Books 1988

  Copyright © Claire Tomalin, 1987

  The acknowledgements on p. 4 constitute an extension of this copyright page.

  Katherine Mansfield - Portrait of Katherine Mansfield by Anne Estelle Rice, courtesy of Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa / Bridgeman Art Library; Portrait of Virginia Woolf © Hulton-Deutsch Collection / CORBIS; Portrait of D. H. Lawrence © TopFoto

  All rights reserved

  ISBN: 978-0-14-104234-3

  * Antony Alpers spoke to another witness of Beauchamp family life, Rose Ridler, in 1947, who said Mrs Beauchamp did not appear to like her third daughter.19

  * Katherine's Adonis has been tentatively identified by David Kynaston in Archie's Last Stand as R. H. (‘Ronny’) Fox, a New Zealand-born amateur. He appeared as a Maori chief at the ship's fancy-dress ball.

  * Maata married twice. She had two daughters of the second marriage, and spent her fortune lavishly until it was gone: she had ‘plenty of charm a clever talker and in her adult years a distinct disinclination to sleep by herself. Quite irresponsible about money… On a small scale she was a kind of Amber. I think that is the best way to describe her. I have lost count of how many times she was married.’9 (Amber was the heroine of a bestselling soft-porn novel, Forever Amber.) Maata was well aware of the interest her association with K.M. aroused, and claimed to have sent her money, although there is no evidence of any contact after Katherine's return to Europe in 1908. A fragment of a diary kept by Maata was acquired by Ruth Mantz and is in Texas, and there was talk of a further manuscript, which she encouraged; even after her death in 1952 her daughter made mysterious references to it, but nobody has ever produced it and it is almost certainly a piece of pure invention.

  * The story is reproduced in Appendix 1.

  * Comparable episodes are the use of Helen Corke's experiences in The Trespasser and the use of Jessie Chambers' in Sons and Lovers. Lawrence also asked Mabel Dodge Luhan to give him notes on her life, which he planned to turn into a novel, in 1922, and he used Frieda's reminiscences in his work also. Had Lawrence and Katherine agreed on a collaborative work, we might have had something very startling indeed.

  * Elizabeth Robins (1862–1952) became President of the Women Writers' Suffrage League, founded in 1908, and author of a successful play, Votes for Women, produced in 1907.

  * Both Vera Brittain and Rebecca West spoke of Katherine's appearance at a reputedly lesbian night club, The Cave of the Golden Calf, in 1913, where she is said to have either performed or introduced the acts.

  * Ruth Draper was born in New York in 1889. Her success came in London in 1920, when she gave a public performance of her own sketches, very much in the manner described by Katherine in 1908.

  * Katherine's notebooks contain many scraps of ‘letters’ which may have been drafts of letters actually sent, or simply notes in which she addressed a chosen person, as she did later her dead brother.

  *
There were at least four German editions of the story, called ‘Schlafen’ in print at that date.

  * For a full account of the arguments about the plagiarism, see pp. 208–11. See also Appendix 2.

  * Ida dated her arrival in January, but Floryan had letters from the Strand Palace in December.

  * The following is an extract from a medical report made by Dr Bouchage in 1921 and annotated by Murry. It was sent to me by the late Mrs (Mary) Middleton Murry. ‘When I first saw her, Oct. 15 1920, she had been suffering from lung troubles for three years, and was at the time complaining of bad attacks of coughing, especially morning and evening (in spite of codeine taken 6 times a day for the last 2 years), of much stiffness and pain in the right hip joint and muscles round and also in the spine, of palpitations in the heart on the least provocation. (Digitalis mixture taken for six months previously.) ‘Previous history. Age 32. Excellent health till 20. Married for the first time at 18. Had two years after an attack of peritonitis (very likely from gonococcal origin), white discharge for four months. Left salpinx was removed then. Since that time she has never been quite well. A short time after began to suffer from rheumatism, in various muscles of the body, hip joints and small joints in feet, and has been more or less troubled with it ever since. ‘During the war, exertions and worries. In autumn 1917 actual disease began and since then has been more or less an invalid with lungs and heart and rheumatic troubles. No T.B. in family history.’