"Divine warnings" : Katherine Mansfield

Abstract

On her death in January 1923, Katherine Mansfield bequeathed a body of work - both fictional and critical-sufficient to fill several volumes. Although she was not of English origin, she nevertheless counted many celebrated figures of the era as her consorts. Why then, does she remain peripheral to the canon? This dissertation probes the problem of Mansfield's reputation, examining the reasons that she remained (and remains) insufficiently recognised for her contribution to modernist literature. It further proposes that Mansfield's writing displays many of the hallmarks of modernism for which her peers - whose writing succeeded hers by several years - would later become famous.