Background
Katherine Mansfield was born Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp in 1888 into a socially prominent family in Wellington, New Zealand.
Katherine Mansfield was born Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp in 1888 into a socially prominent family in Wellington, New Zealand.
Her first published stories appeared in the High School Reporter and the Wellington Girls' High School magazine in 1898 and 1899. Mansfield wrote in her journals of feeling alienated in New Zealand. She had several works published in the Native Companion (Australia), her first paid writing work, and by this time she had her heart set on becoming a professional writer. Back in London in 1908, Mansfield quickly fell into a bohemian way of life. She published only one story and one poem during her first 15 months there. She returned to London in January 1910. She then published more than a dozen articles in A.R. Orage's socialist magazine The New Age. Mansfield submitted a lightweight story to a new avant-garde magazine called Rhythm. Mansfield proved to have been a prolific writer in the final years of her life. Much of her work remained unpublished at her death, and Murry took on the task of editing and publishing it in two additional volumes of short stories (The Dove's Nest in 1923 and Something Childish in 1924), a volume of Poems, The Aloe, Novels and Novelists, and collections of her letters and journals.
The following high schools in New Zealand have a house named after her: Rangitoto College, Westlake Girls' High School, Macleans College all in Auckland, Tauranga Girls' College in Tauranga, Wellington Girls' College in Wellington, Rangiora High School in North Canterbury and Southland Girls' High School in Invercargill. A street in Menton, France, where she lived and wrote, is named after her.
