Katherine Mansfield: 1888-1923

Katherine Mansfield was born on October 14,1888 in Wellington, New Zealand, into a middle-class colonial family. Her father was a banker and her mother was of genteel origins. She lived for six years in the rural village of Karori.

At the age of nine she had her first text published. As a first step to her rebellion against her background, she withdrew to London in 1903 and studied at Queen's College.

Back in New Zealand in 1906, she took up music.

Her lifelong friend Ida Baker persuaded Mansfield's father to allow Katherine to move back to England, with an allowance of £100 a year. There she devoted herself to writing. Mansfield never visited New Zealand again.

After an unhappy marriage in 1909 to George Brown, whom she left a few days after the wedding, Mansfield toured for a while as an extra in opera.

During the first world war she travelled restlessly between England and France.

As a writer of stories Katherine Mansfield helped to put New Zealand literature on the world map.

In her last years Mansfield spent much of her time in southern France and in Switzerland, seeking relief from tuberculosis.

Mansfield died on January 9, 1923 near Fontainebleau, France.