In The Daughters of the Late Colonel by Katherine Mansfield we have the theme of freedom, control, isolation, uncertainty, paralysis, fear and letting go.

In Miss Brill by Katherine Mansfield we have the theme of paralysis, loneliness, connection and escape. Taken from her The Garden Party and Other Stories

In The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield we have the theme of connection, class, isolation, conflict and denial. Taken from her collection of the same

In The Voyage by Katherine Mansfield we have the theme of innocence, responsibility, change and moving on. Taken from her The Garden Party and Other

In A Cup of Tea by Katherine Mansfield we have the theme of jealousy, insecurity, materialism and class. Taken from her The Doves’ Nest and Other Stories

In Frau Brechenmacher Attends a Wedding by Katherine Mansfield we have the theme of gender roles, domination, submission, control, struggle, identity and

In Marriage à la Mode by Katherine Mansfield we have the theme of change, uncertainty, selfishness, alienation and isolation. Taken from her The Garden

In A Dill Pickle by Katherine Mansfield we have the theme of strength, control, self-centeredness, love, selfishness and empowerment. Taken from her Bliss

By Dr Oliver Tearle 'A literary movement', the Irish novelist George Moore once observed, 'consists of five or six people who live in the same town and hate each other cordially.' Few literary movements better exemplify Moore's point than modernism. Modernism was a hugely significant movement in art, literature, architecture, and music in the early…

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) 'The Garden Party' (1920) is probably Katherine Mansfield's best-known and best-loved story. She never wrote a full-length novel, but - taking her cue from such innovators as Anton Chekhov - made the short story form her own. A brief introduction to the story's plot, themes, and language will, we hope,…

The life and work of short-story writer Katherine Mansfield, in five pieces of trivia 1. Katherine Mansfield was the only writer who made Virginia Woolf jealous. When Katherine Mansfield died of tuberculosis, aged just 35, in 1923, fellow modernist writer Virginia Woolf confided in her diary: 'I was jealous of her writing - the only…

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) A number of modernist novels are praised as among the greatest novels of the twentieth century: James Joyce’s Ulysses, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, and Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness, to offer just three examples. But modernist fiction had its origins in the short story form, and many of…

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Free indirect style, alternatively known as free indirect speech or free indirect discourse, is a narrative style which requires some explanation and unpicking, since it is subtle and sometimes difficult to spot in a work of fiction. However, it is one of the most powerful tools a writer possesses,…

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) The New Zealand-born writer Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) was one of the pioneers of the modernist short story in English, taking her cue from Russian writers like Anton Chekhov. Below we’ve given a brief beginner’s guide to five of Mansfield’s very best short stories, with links to where each of…

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Katherine Mansfield’s ‘Bliss’ is one of her first great short stories – the genre she excelled at (she never wrote a novel, and her poetry failed to make a mark on the literary world). ‘Bliss’ was first published in 1918, and is shot through with homoerotic longing and the…

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘The Daughters of the Late Colonel’: as titles go, it is one of Katherine Mansfield’s more helpfully instructive. This modernist short story from 1922 focuses on Josephine and Constantia, or ‘Jug’ and ‘Con’ as they affectionately know each other, two sisters whose father, the ‘late colonel’ of the story’s…

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘Prelude’ is one of Katherine Mansfield’s longest, and finest, short stories. Centring on the Burnell family as they move house in New Zealand, ‘Prelude’ is the opening story in Katherine Mansfield’s first ‘mature’ collection of fiction, Bliss and Other Stories (1920), although the story had first been published two…

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘Prelude’, the long short story which opens Katherine Mansfield’s 1920 collection Bliss and Other Stories, is a modernist masterpiece. But like much modernist fiction, its meaning and its subtle use of symbolism and other narrative devices are unlikely to be fully apparent after a first, or even a second…

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) The novels and short stories of the American writer Kate Chopin (1850-1904) are important precursors to twentieth-century modernism, and can be viewed as forerunners to the short fiction of Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf, and other high modernists. Where other nineteenth-century writers tended to privilege plot over character, and action…

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Family plays an important part in much fiction, of course, but sometimes the short story form has offered us an insight into family life that the longer novel does not. Because it can only provide us with a few snapshots, or a handful of moments, perhaps even just one…