- A young student has just struck literary gold, discovering four previously unknown stories written more than a century ago by Katherine Mansfield.
Any new material by Mansfield, who had a dramatic
impact on short-story writing as an art form, is of interest. But this find is
all the more exciting because it includes a story offering fascinating,
autobiographical insight into one of the most painful chapters of her life –
unrequited love, a marriage of convenience and a stillborn baby.
A Little Episode dates from 1909 and reveals the
bitter disillusionment of a love triangle whose memory Mansfield tried to erase
by destroying all her personal papers from that year – to the exasperation of
biographers.
Now it will help to reconstruct an obscure period
of her life – the story of a musician who abandoned her, having made her
pregnant, and a teacher she abandoned in turn on their wedding day, eventually
losing her baby.
The discovery – which also includes previously
unknown photographs – was made by Chris Mourant, 23, a PhD student at King's
College London. Although in the university's archives, the material had been
overlooked until he spotted its significance.
Learning that the University of Edinburgh was to
publish the first complete edition of Mansfield's fiction, he contacted Dr
Gerri Kimber, senior lecturer at the University of Northampton and the
edition's co-editor with Vincent O'Sullivan. They were just about to send the
first volume to press.
"My jaw dropped," Dr Kimber said.
"This all happened last Monday."
At the eleventh hour, she has included the new
stories as an appendix.
Three are charming, children's fairy tales from
1908 and the fourth has "huge biographical significance", Dr Kimber
said, describing it as "brilliant" and "unputdownable".
Such is Mansfield's popularity that she has never
been out of print. Her best-known writings include The Garden Party, from 1922,
with the classic "The Daughters of the Late Colonel", an exploration
of genteel frustration.
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