(A Family Affair
Kate Chopin, american author of short sto...)
A Family Affair
Kate Chopin, american author of short stories and novels (1850-1904)
This ebook presents «A Family Affair», from Kate Chopin. A dynamic table of contents enables to jump directly to the chapter selected.
Table of Contents
- About This Book
- A Family Affair
(A December Day in Dixie and Other Works
Kate Chopin, amer...)
A December Day in Dixie and Other Works
Kate Chopin, american author of short stories and novels (1850-1904)
This ebook presents «A December Day in Dixie and Other Works», from Kate Chopin. A dynamic table of contents enables to jump directly to the chapter selected.
Table of Contents
- About This Book
- A December Day In Dixie
- A Harbinger
- A Little Free Mulatto
- A Morning Walk
- A Pair Of Silk Stockings
- An Egyptian Cigarette
- An Idle Fellow
- Doctor Chevalier's Lie
- Juanita
- The Blind Man
- The Kiss
- The Night Came Slowly
- The Recovery
- The Story Of An Hour
- The Unexpected
Works of Kate Chopin - 4 Volumes (The Works Of Kate Chopin - 4 Volumes)
(4 Volume Set of Kate Chopin Reprint Library Binding Hardc...)
4 Volume Set of Kate Chopin Reprint Library Binding Hardcover Leather Bound Edition The Awakening, Night in Acadie, Bayou Folk, At Fault. Kate Chopin, born Katherine O'Flaherty (1850 - 1904), was a U.S. author of short stories and novels. ...Chopin wrote short stories for both children and adults... Her stories aroused controversy because of her subjects and her approach; they were condemned as immoral by some critics. Her major works were two short story collections: Bayou Folk (1894) and A Night in Acadie (1897). Chopin also wrote two novels: At Fault (1890) and The Awakening (1899). Chopin was widely recognized as one of the leading writers of her time. (Wikipedia)
Kate Chopin was an American author. She published her works in such national magazines as Atlantic Monthly, Vogue, The Century Magazine, and The Youth's Companion.
Background
Kate Chopin was born on February 08, 1851 in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. She was descended through her mother from a French family which settled at old Kaskaskia in the early part of the eighteenth century, and through her father, Thomas O’Flaherty, from an honorable Irish family which had for generations been land agents in the County Galway. Thomas, who had come to St. Louis a lad of eighteen, was markedly successful in business, but his death in the Gasconade Bridge disaster when his daughter Kate was a mere child prevented his influencing her. His lavish hospitality was continued by his wife Eliza (Faris) O’Flaherty, a society-loving woman of unusual beauty and force. From the perpetual callers and entertainments as well as from the troubles of the Civil War period the daughter’s favorite refuge was a stepladder in the attic where she pored over the works of Scott, Fielding, and Spenser.
Education
Kate's schooling was rather irregular, and she herself attributed more of her education to her wide reading than to the music, French literature, theology, and elementary science which she was taught at the Sacred Heart Convent. She graduated in 1868.
Career
In 1870 Kate married Oscar Chopin who was then working in a bank owned by relatives. After a honeymoon in Europe, they move to the Southland that made undoubtedly the most important influence on the development of Mrs. Chopin’s literary career. In view of the fact that five sons were born in the ten years in which her husband acted as a cotton factor in New Orleans and that she was immediately drawn into the social life of the city, it is not surprising that her debut as a writer was still postponed. Her husband’s decision to manage his own and his younger sister's large plantations on the Red River brought her to a new and fascinating world, the world which is even yet best described in her short stories. At this home in Cloutiersville her only daughter was born and her husband died from a swamp fever in 1882.
The difficulties of managing a large estate and her mother’s desire to have the family reunited in St. Louis caused Mrs. Chopin first to rent and then to sell the plantation although she always loved and frequently revisited Natchitoches Parish. One of the most modest and retiring of women, in her new leisure she was induced to take up writing by friends who had been charmed by her letters. As she herself realized, her first novel, At Fault, published in her home city in 1890, is distinctly amateurish, its chief interest being in the fact that the central character represents her mother.
Her critical faculty, however, and her study of the French masters whom she admired and translated, notably De Maupassant and Daudet, produced in a short time an amazing development in technique. Famous magazines published her children’s stories; her work for mature readers appeared in such magazines as the Century and Harper’s. She became known for her works, Bayou Folk (1894) and A Night in Acadie (1897), and her second novel, The Awakening (1899).
Unquestionably Mrs. Chopin’s stories rank very high in the local color movement of the nineties. Although some of them are mere sketches, a tale like “Desiree’s Baby” could scarcely be excelled. All of her shorter pieces arc marked by sympathy, a delicately objective treatment, and endings poignant in their restraint. These same qualities make The Awakening almost exotic. The sensuous loveliness of the description, the subtle symbolism, the jewel-like polish of each haunting episode, the masterly manner in which are unveiled the tumults of a woman’s soul, all are Gallic in effect. It is one of the tragedies of recent American literature that Mrs. Chopin should have written this book two decades in advance of its time, that she should have been so grievously hurt by the attacks of provincial critics as to lay aside her pen. Always a self- sacrificing mother, she devoted herself with special solicitude at this time to her son Jean. Renewed plans for work were prevented by her sudden death from a brain hemorrhage.
Mrs. Chopin’s early photographs show her a charming girlish figure in the quaint costume of the mid-century. At the time she was writing, the premature whitening which often accompanies black hair and which formed a marked contrast to her brilliant brown eyes and delicate complexion as well as her small plump figure caused her friends to compare her to a French marquise. Always quiet and unassuming, she is said to have been a most stimulating listener; undoubtedly to this fact, even though she never consciously sought for materials, must be attributed the range of her characterizations—from the cotton-picking African American to great Creole ladies.
Connections
In June 1870, Kate married Oscar Chopin, a native of Louisiana. They had six children.