Short Stories, Irish literature, Classics, Modern Fiction, Contemporary Literary Fiction, The Japanese Novel, Post Colonial Asian Fiction, The Legacy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and quality Historical Novels are Among my Interests








Wednesday, November 24, 2010

"Father and the Girls" by Katherine Mansfield

"Father and the Girls" by Katherine Mansfield (10 pages, 1923, an unfinished story)


"Father and the Girls"  is one of the stories that Katherine Mansfield (1888 to 1923-New Zealand) did not finish.     Her husband included it in a collection of her work he published shortly after her death, The Dove's Nest and Other Stories (1923) along with 14 other unfinished works.   According to John Middleton Murry's introduction to the collection, some of the stories were  still in the development stage and others were simply not as polished as Mansfield would have wanted.   I am  very glad Murry published these works for us to cherish.   My posts on the unfinished stories will be brief.

"Father and the Girls" seems to me like a partially plotted story, no a story basically completed waiting to be put in publication ready condition.    As the story begins Father and his two daughters,  the girls, are on a train through Italy.   My guess is Mansfield liked trains as they play a big role in her stories.   Father and the girls have been on a long Continental train trip.     The surprise is that "the girls" are in their 60s!.   There is some great prose in this story.

Stay tuned as we will have two author sponsored give-a-ways on some wonderful 2010 Mansfield books soon

This story can be read online at The New Zealand Electronic Text Center.

Mel u

2 comments:

Mystica said...

Thanks for this post and looking forward toyour giveaways!

Suko said...

Two things struck me about this story, the age of the "girls" and that this is an unfinished work.
I look forward to your giveaways.