Draft newsletter August 2013 - extra pics...Aug 15, 2013 · lucky winner Monika Sobotta – your...

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Issue 15 August 2013

ISSN 2040-2597 (Online)

Inside:

KMS News and Competition Results Page 2

‘Mansfield Unveiled’ by Kevin Boon Page 3

‘Woman of Words’ by Virginia King Page 4

Announcement: KMS Annual Birthday Lecture, London, October 2013 Page 7

Conference Report: ‘Katherine Mansfield: new edition, new approaches’, Paris, June 2013 by Chris Mourant Page 8

Announcement: KMS Postgraduate Day, London, November 2013 1

‘The June Storm’ by Maggie Rainey-Smith Page 12

‘A Voyage’ by Kevin Boon Page 13

Announcement: Celebrating Katherine Mansfield, Wellington, October 2013 Page 18

Book Review: ‘Elizabeth of the German Garden’ (Jennifer Walker) by Kathleen Jones Page 19

CFP: Virginia Woolf Miscellany

Page 21

Book Announcement: Elizabeth

Beyond the German Garden (Isobel Maddison) Page 22

Conference announcement: ‘Katherine Mansfield and France/Katherine Mansfield et la France’, Paris, June 2014 Page 23

‘Woman of Words’ by Virginia King

Photo: Virginia King

Reproduced with kind permission

Published by the Katherine Mansfield Society, Bath, England


COMPETITION Many thanks to all who entered our April competition to win a copy of Her Bright Image: Impressions of

Katherine Mansfield, Moira Taylor’s CD of a 1970s broadcast for Radio New Zealand, which features interviews with Ida Baker, Jeanne Renshaw and Richard Murry. Moira posed the question: how long did The Blue Review last in 1913? The correct answer, of course, was three months. Congratulations to the lucky winner Monika Sobotta – your prize is in the post!

This time, we’re offering you the chance to win a paperback edition of Kathleen Jones’ biography

of KM, Katherine Mansfield: The Storyteller, published by Edinburgh University Press. Kathleen has set

the following question:

Katherine had a much loved cat called Wingley. Who was Wingley’s mother?

To be in with a chance of winning, just email your answer to the editor at the usual address:

[email protected]

Closing date: 30 November 2013

KMS News Welcome to the latest issue of the Katherine Mansfield Society Newsletter, full to the brim with all the latest news from the world of KM. This time, we’re taking the opportunity to mark the achievement of one of the KMS’s prime objectives when it was formed at the end of 2008 – to lobby for the installation of a Mansfield sculpture in her hometown of Wellington. That project has finally been realised by artist Vir-ginia King, with the support of Wellington City Council, the KMS and the Wellington Sculpture Trust and especially its former Chair, Neil Plimmer. The KMS was represented at the opening ceremony by our Honorary Chair, Dr Sarah Sandley, who made a short speech, as well as several KMS members including Maggie Rainey-Smith and Kevin Boon. Turn to page 3 to read Kevin Boon’s report on the unveiling cere-mony in May, followed by Virginia King’s speech to commemorate the occasion (page 4). You’ll also find some exclusive photographs of the sculpture, both under construction and standing in all its glory on Lambton Quay. The sculpture was put in place on a rainy May day in Wellington, but just over a month later a much more devastating storm was to hit, causing considerable damage to a different kind of KM memorial – on page 12, you can read Maggie Rainey-Smith’s account of the June storm and the destruc-tion of the cottage at Days Bay (where a young KM spent some time prior to her departure from Welling-ton in 1908). The focus turns to another one of KM’s New Zealand holiday destinations on page 13, where Kevin Boon discusses his day-trip to Picton to visit various sites associated with KM and the Beau-champ family; Kevin plans to organise a return trip in the future, for a guided walking tour with KMS

members, so watch this space! In the meantime, members may wish to join him for a walking tour of KM’s Wellington in October as part of the KM birthday celebrations, details of which are on page 18; or

perhaps you could celebrate KM’s birthday in London at the KMS Birthday lecture (page 7). KM scholar-ship also continues to thrive at conferences and symposia, as you’ll see on page 8, where Chris Mourant reports on a Parisian conference in June on ‘Katherine Mansfield: new edition, new approaches’. You’ll also find information about two more upcoming events that are scheduled to take place in the near future – a Postgraduate Symposium to be held at Birkbeck, University of London in November (page 11) and a major international conference on ‘Katherine Mansfield and France/Katherine Mansfield et la France’ in Paris in June 2014 (page 23). Finally, for news of more KM-related studies, you’ll find a CFP for a forth-coming special issue of Virginia Woolf Miscellany on page 21, and on page 19 Kathleen Jones’ review of a new biography of KM’s cousin, ‘Elizabeth of the German Garden’, by Jennifer Walker. We also look forward to reading another biography of Elizabeth that’s recently been published by another KMS mem-ber, Isobel Maddison; you’ll find more information on page 22. Congratulations to both! As ever, we hope you enjoy this latest issue, and want to hear from you, so please keep sending in your submissions to the editor at the usual address: [email protected]

Jenny McDonnell Editor, Katherine Mansfield Society Newsletter


The statue of Katherine Mansfield, ‘Woman of Words’, was unveiled at Mid-land Park, shortly after 6.00 pm on the evening of Wednesday, 8 May. It is a magnificent monument to New Zealand’s most acclaimed author and, arguably, one of the best modern sculptures in the world. Despite the chilly evening, a large crowd gathered to celebrate the occasion and they were addressed by representa-tives from the Wellington Sculpture Trust, the Wellington City Council, the Kathe-rine Mansfield Society, the Birthplace So-ciety and others organisations that had supported the project. All were proud that this memorial to one of Wellington’s most celebrated and cherished citizens now stands on the corner of our busiest street, where Katherine Mansfield frequently walked. The sculptor, Virginia King, then described the philosophy behind the sculp-ture and some of the frustrations and diffi-culties its creation presented. It is con-structed from steel and perforated with samples of writing from a wide variety of Katherine Mansfield’s stories and diaries. The face is a mask, in keeping with a statement Mansfield once made and the hair is formed from one of her shopping lists, but it is Mansfield and modernist in every sense. Cathy Downes provided an excellent performance of ‘The Doll’s House’, which was greatly appreciated by the audience. The unveiling was led by the mayor, Celia Wade-Brown, although all hands were re-quired before the 3.3 metre statue was re-vealed. Illuminated from within, it was admired and applauded by all present. Fi-nally, many of those present adjourned to the Astoria Café where this historic occa-sion was convivially celebrated.

Kevin Boon

KMS Treasurer

Mansfield Unveiled

Photos: Maggie Rainey-Smith


Woman of Words Virginia King’s speech on the unveiling of ‘Woman of Words’

8 May 2013

Most women turn to salt looking back!

The brief from Wellington Sculpture Trust required the artwork celebrate Katherine Mansfield’s literary heritage. I decided to make an exception to my sculpture practice over the past 30 years and proposed a figura-tive artwork, entirely laser cut with words and phrases from Katherine Mansfield’s writing… I moved outside my comfort zone...

Risk! Risk anything!

Woman of Words is a celebration of Katherine Mans-field’s achievements and her aspiration to be seen ‘as

a writer first and a woman after’. While Wellington Sculpture Trust secured funding for the project, I spent around two years im-mersed in Mansfield’s short stories, journals and dia-ries, and selected many lines that resonated in my head. As we installed the work in Monday’s deluge, I remembered: ‘I love the rain, I want the feeling in my

face’. During the design process, I made several Marquettes to refine the form and confirm

accuracy of each panel shape, using paper and wood; and

eventually, to run through our theories about the process, we made a stainless steel figure, laser cut at one third scale. One of the major challenges was to create soft ‘fabric’ curves, from flat panels of stain-less steel. Initially we used a massive 20 tonne, foot-operated press, for the hun-dreds of incremental pressings, on either side of the steel

sheet, to form the undulating fabric folds. And a Pullmax machine to develop the rounded compound curved panels of the hollow figure. Creating this artwork has been like making a suit


of armour. I wanted to give her the presence of a warrior. Each panel has been laser cut with Katherine Mansfield’s words, as the filigreed figure is designed to become a lantern of words at night. Among the text, I’ve included many references to New Zealand; to Karori; Mansfield’s

birthplace; the Wellington wharves and the Picton ferry; camping in the Urewera bush; and

her numerous references to the sea. I’m grateful to Vincent O’Sullivan for his positive comments about the text selection, and to Gerri Kimber for sending lines from the cache of recently found stories. The placement of text needed to be consid-ered carefully and is arranged so panels can be read standing in one place, without walking around the artwork. On the right arm I’ve placed: ‘This is not a

letter but my arms around you for a brief mo-

ment’; on the left: ‘Toi Toi branches bent in the

wind to shake out their golden hair’. Line length was always a restriction; sin-

gle-word titles of short stories appear at hip lev-el. As the line length options increase, the phrase lengths also increase until the lines run along the flowing hem of this 1920s skirt. I have given the work the long pointed sleeves wished for in ‘The Dressmaker’, to em-phasise the hands and allude to Mansfield’s ear-ly years as a cellist and her frequent mention of hands and gloves.


The bobbed hair-style was assembled from shopping lists found in the journal, dat-ed 1922. The mask-face is a response to Katherine Mansfield’s letter to Syl-via Payne:

Don’t lower your

mask unless you

have another mask

prepared beneath

– as terrible as

you like – but a

mask…

I carved the mask and hands initially in Plaster of Paris; they were then ceramic

moulded and cast in wax, before I separated the fingers and experimented with varying mask expressions. These components are cast marine grade, stainless steel. It was difficult to calculate how long the project might take and there have been times when there appeared to be no horizon: ‘Regret is an appalling waste of energy’. I’d especially like to thank my fantastic team for their patience, perseverance and as-sistance throughout the complexities of this project: Mike King, thank you for Project Management: Design Documentation and securing permits, liaising with contractors, and managing to bring some balance to our lives during the past 10 months’ assembly… and delivering delicious pies to Luke and I at the workshop. Special thanks to Luke King, for your assistance throughout the project, your patience in the meticulous placement of the text … even when I changed my mind ... for assembling our many computer printouts, for your hands-on work during fabrication and for playing good music as we travelled home each day in heavy traffic. Special thanks to Ben Galloway, sheet metal worker, for his metal forming skills, and multiple, even stitch welds and to Lance Rummins, the Workshop Manager at Stainless En-gineering who also lost sleep during the project. Thanks to our Structural Engineer, Steve Thorne of Thorne Dwyer Structures who said losing sleep was his job. Thank you to Martin Goulden for the Lambton Quay site works: the foundation and installation, and Bryan Mitchell for lighting and testing. Thanks also to Pearl Button, the filmmakers who documented the project, Nikki Bai-gent and Hamish Mortland; to Nathalia Lusardi, from Argentina who modelled for the mask;

Judy Craig who modelled for the hands and Jon Craig for his integrity, constant support and encouragement during the project. I’m extremely grateful to Neil Plimmer and the Wellington Sculpture Trust for their leap of faith in commissioning this project, and their partnership with Wellington City Council, and to the Katherine Mansfield Society for suggesting the concept. Thank you.

Virginia King May 2013

Photos: Virginia King. Reproduced with kind permission


CONFERENCE REPORT ‘Katherine Mansfield’s fiction: new edition, new approaches’,

Paris, 21 June 2013

Katherine Mansfield had a lifelong attachment to Paris, from the winter spent with Middleton Mur-ry living at 31 Rue de Tournon within a stone’s throw of the Jardin du Luxembourg, the days of solitude spent writing in Francis Carco’s flat on the Quai aux Fleurs around the corner from Notre Dame Cathedral, to the drunken nights spent with Beatrice Hastings under the shadow of the Sacré Cœur in Montmartre. In her letters, Mansfield writes that Paris is ‘so human’ and ‘noble’: ‘It is a real city, old and fine and life plays in it for every-body to see.’ (Letters of KM, Vol. 1, to Charlotte Beauchamp Perkins, 22 December 1913) Almost one hundred years after these words were written, scholars from as far afield as Japan gathered in Nanterre, west Paris, to discuss Mans-field’s life and work. Held to mark the publication of the new edition of Mansfield’s fiction by Edin-burgh University Press, this international confer-ence offered a moment for both celebration and critical reassessment, and we thank Valérie Baisnée for her hard work in making this happen. I started proceedings with an overview of the ‘forgotten typescripts of Katherine Mansfield’ found last year in the archives at King’s College London, and it was nice to see that these stories provided the basis for many of the papers deliv-ered throughout the day. For instance, Anne Mounic analysed ‘The Thoughtful Child’ stories (and we eagerly await Anne’s new book from which this paper was taken) and Georgia Hume focused on ‘A Little Episode’. Georgia’s paper provided some excellent close readings of the sto-ry, highlighting the importance of music in Mans-field’s life and work. The morning session ended with ‘a short history and a few perspectives’ on critical ap-proaches to Mansfield’s writing, delivered by Anne Besnault-Levita. A thoroughly well-researched paper (as shown by the long and huge-ly helpful bibliography provided as a handout!), Anne posed an important question for Mansfield scholarship: has the study of Mansfield suffered due to too much attention being devoted to the biographical mode of analysis? This raised an in-


teresting debate, which was re-turned to throughout the rest of the day. One thing which was made clear from this discussion, though, was that ‘Mansfield’s star is cer-tainly in the ascendency’. Gerri Kimber began her key-note address to the conference with this welcome observation, and Mansfield’s ‘ascendency’ is in no small part attributable to the publication of the EUP Collected

Fiction, edited by Gerri with Vin-cent O’Sullivan. Gerri’s paper showed how the edition helps to reveal new perspectives on Mans-

field’s work. Calling attention to the many references to fairies and the faie, to the recurring image of the lamp, and to the prominence of Māori culture across Mansfield’s oeuvre, Gerri highlighted how the new edi-tion allows for a comprehen-sive reassessment of Mans-field’s fiction. Gerri ended her keynote with an image of the new sculpture of Mansfield at Midland Park in Wellington, a sculpture which lights up at night to reveal Mansfield’s words illuminated over her body like ‘long beams coming from my fingers and sparks fly-ing from my toes’. Gerri ended on the suggestion that these ‘long beams’ and ‘sparks’ pro-vide a nice analogy for the cur-rent state of Mansfield scholar-ship: ‘like silver polished to brilliance’. After a lovely lunch (that put UK conference food to shame!), Jian Choe assessed Mansfield’s engagement with metropolitan consumer culture in ‘The Tiredness of Rosabel’ and Christine Lorre focused on the ‘unfinished’ stories from The Dove’s Nest and Other

Stories, works that are often overlooked. Andrew Dean then delivered a fascinating paper that encompassed Nietzschean


and Bergsonian philosophy to arrive at an idea of ‘autography’ rather than ‘autobiography’ in the works of Mansfield, in which the materiality of writing performs the labour of becom-ing oneself. And the day ended with Janet Wilson speaking on the specificities of Mans-field’s production, marketing and reception within the New Zealand context.

It seems fitting that such a conference should have been held in Paris, a city which meant so much to Mansfield. As was often remarked throughout the day, the best conferences are sometimes the most in-timate, and the stimulating discussion which followed every paper and involved each participant was testa-ment to this. We look for-ward to next summer, when Paris again welcomes Mansfield scholars from across the world.

Chris Mourant,

King’s College London


The June Storm

We’re used to the wind here in Wellington and the southerly can be spectacular. But this time, in June, when the southerly hit us we were not expecting anything quite so dramatic. Sadly, the holiday home of Katherine Mansfield, one of five houses on a rocky outcrop at the northern end of Days Bay, was swamped. I was at home during the storm, and we’d lost power the night before, so I had the fire going and I was watching out my window as the waves crashed over the KM holiday house. It didn’t occur to me at the time, how much damage the waves might do – I was simply amazed to see waves higher than the house, crashing over it. Here are some photographs of the damage the storm caused, taken by local photographer Simon Hoyle that he has kindly shared with me. And here is a link to a local newspaper article that includes a photo-graph of the waves at the front of the house. The peak of the storm was around

2.00 am in the morning when many of the homes on the outcrop, were evacuated: http://static.stuff.co.nz/1371812640/939/8827939.jpg

It’s sad to think that this historic house which survived even the infamous Wahine storm in 1968, now appears to have been written off. In February this year, some lucky visi-tors from overseas who had come to the ‘Katherine Mansfield: Masked and Unmasked’ con-ference, were able to visit both the KM house in Eastbourne and the KM cottage in Days Bay and to walk along the beach.

Maggie Rainey-Smith

KMS Member, Days Bay


‘The Voyage’

A voyage to Picton to explore sites and locations associated with Katherine Mansfield for a future one-day excursion

Departure During the years 1889-1908, the young Katherine Mansfield travelled to Picton many times to visit her Beauchamp relatives in the South Island. These visits provided the material for some of her stories. In ‘The Voyage’ Fenella and her grandmother take the overnight ferry from Wellington to Picton:

Lying beside the dark wharf, all strung, all beaded with round golden lights,

the Picton boat looked as if she was more ready to sail among stars than out

into the cold sea. I must admit that, as I set out in the cold morning light, the Bluebridge ferry was not ‘all beaded with round golden lights’ and she certainly did not look ‘ready to sail among the stars’, but hopefully to cross the (sometimes formidable) Cook Strait. However, after follow-ing the huge trucks into the cavernous hold, and ascending the metal winding staircase to the various lounges and decks in her massive bridge, one could enjoy the sights of the city as she prepared for departure.

Silently the dark wharf began to slip, to slide, to edge away from them. Now

there was a rush of water between […] The strip of water grew broader,

darker. Now the Picton boat began to swing round steady, pointing out to

sea. It was no good looking any longer. There was nothing to be seen but a

few lights, the face of the town clock hanging in the air, and more lights, little

patches of them on the dark hills.

The face of the town clock no longer hangs in the air, and I was a little disappointed the ship’s horn did not go ‘Mia-oo-oo-O-O!’ However, it is always a pleasure to farewell the sights of the city and to observe familiar landmarks as the vessel sails out of the calm har-bour, with ‘The Bay’ and the white lighthouses of Pencarrow Head on the port quarter and Palmer Head and (hopefully) the formidable Barrett Reef to starboard. There was a slight southerly swell as we entered the strait, but when we moved into the lee of the South Island it was remarkably calm. However, it is probable that Katherine Mansfield made her voyage on the relatively tiny steamer Penguin (824 tonnes gross) in 1894. In 1909, the year after she left New Zealand, the vessel was tragically shipwrecked at Thoms Rock near Sinclair Head, with the loss of 72 lives.

The Voyage It was time to descend to the lounge and explore its culinary delights, as Fenella and her grandmother had done, so many years ago.

They were in the saloon. It was glaring bright and stifling: the air smelled of

paint and burned chop-bones and indiarubber. Fenella wished her grand-

mother would go on, but she was not to be hurried. An immense basket of

ham sandwiches caught her eye. She went up to them and touched the top of

one delicately with her finger.


The smells have changed and the ‘wickedly expensive’ ham sandwiches have been replaced by an extensive range of modern ‘brunch’ and liquid refreshment options.

Fenella and her grandmother adjourned to their cabin for the remainder of their night-voyage. I went on deck to compare the scene with what I could recall from the voyages that I had made to stay with my grandparents in Picton, over 50 years previously. The old whaling station in Tory Channel had closed many years ago, mussel farms had been developed in several locations and in many areas the native bush had given way to pine plantations. But the sounds have retained their tranquil beauty, with appealing holiday homes located in many of the bays and coves. I longed to be back in my grandfather’s boat, listening to the songs of the native birds and fishing for the blue cod and terakihi that were plentiful in those happy times.

Arrival

On the land a white mist rose and fell. Even the shapes of the umbrella ferns

showed, and those strange silvery withered trees that are like skeletons... Now

they could see the landing stage and some little houses, pale too, clustered to-

gether like shells on the lid of a box.

‘It’s Mr Penreddy, Fenella, come for us,’ said grandma. She sounded

pleased. Her white waxen cheeks were blue with cold, her chin trembled, and

she had to keep wiping her eyes and her little pink nose.

Mr Penreddy was not waiting for me, but Julie Kennedy, who had generously offered to guide me around Picton and inform me about the many locations associated with Katherine Mansfield and her family. We did not travel in a horse and cart, but by shanks’ pony, and occasionally in Julie’s faithful Mercedes. Julie was delightful company. We shared an in-tense interest in the history of Katherine Mansfield and her family and in their associations with Picton and the Marlborough Sounds. Julie has written a fascinating book on the subject, Katherine Mansfield in Picton and I have asked her to bring some copies when she acts as our tour guide.

Edwin Fox We will resume Fenella’s journey later, but first we will be visiting the Museum and relic of the former sailing vessel Edwin Fox, rated as one of the oldest existing ships in the world. I can recall observing the Edwin Fox while fishing from Picton wharf, over 50 years ago. At the time she was moored near the Picton freezing works and being used as a coal store and landing stage. The Edwin Fox was built in 1853 on the Hooghly River near Calcutta. She was constructed from teak and other woods from that region and clad with a hand-beaten mixture of copper and zinc to protect her from teredo worm. Her registered tonnage was 909 tonnes and her overall length was 49.4 metres – much larger than Cook’s Endeavour or even the Penguin. She made her maiden voyage from Calcutta to London, via Cape Town in 1853.

From that point on she had an amazing career, first as a troop ship carrying British and French soldiers to the Crimean War. (It is believed that the famous nurse, Florence Nightingale, was one of her passengers.) Later she transported convicts from England to Australia, and a list of the passengers and their crimes may be viewed in the museum (my relatives were not among them). Later she brought immigrants to New Zealand including 140 to Lyttelton in 1873, 259 to Wellington in 1875, 244 to Nelson in 1878 and 108 to Lyt-telton in 1880. Eventually time and the advent of steam-driven vessels caught up with the old wooden ‘windjammer’ but she received an additional life of sorts. In 1885 she was converted


to a frozen-meat storage vessel in which carcases could be stored, before being loaded onto steam vessels equipped with frozen-storage systems and transported to Britain and other lo-cations.

She was towed to Picton wharf to act in this role in 1897. It was in that capacity that Katherine Mansfield would have observed her when the Penguin berthed on the opposite side of Picton Wharf. I will provide no more of her history here but the museum has many artefacts and much information regarding her career. Her hull is like the carcass of a huge prehistoric animal, and to stand within and admire the workmanship that went into her and imagine the conditions for those who sailed on her, is a very special experience. Lunch We proceeded along the Picton Foreshore, noting various points of interest, including the Captain Cook Plaque, passed through the War Memorial Arch and crossed London Quay to enjoy lunch at a restaurant overlooking the harbour.

After lunch we walked around the corner to Wellington Street. This is a very historic street because from the 1860s it was the main street, with the wharves, post office and a number of hotels. In 1900 Picton was a colourful place with tall ships at the wharf. On New Year’s Day a regatta was held to Mabel Island (Tukurehu, or ‘floating mist’), with hundreds coming by boat from Wellington for an annual excursion day.

Katherine Mansfield’s grandparents Arthur and Mary Beauchamp arrived in Picton in 1861, with two children, one of whom was Harold Beauchamp (KM’s father), then aged two. The boat they arrived on, the Lalla Rookh, had come from Melbourne, Australia, via Wellington, and would have docked at the old Picton wharf. The Beauchamps lived in a number of houses in Picton. We do not know exactly which house is the one referred to in ‘The Voyage’. It is likely it is a composite of several houses, including the Beauchamp homestead at Anakiwa, owned by her great-uncle Cradock Beauchamp (that house fell into disrepair in the 1960s and is no longer in existence). It is not always possible to equate fact with fiction with certainty and ‘The Voyage’ is a story, but we believe the house in Waikawa Road, where Arthur and Mary were living in 1907, was the model for the one in the story.

Post Offices We visited the site where a Custom House and Post Office was built in 1861. A new Post Office was built on the same site in 1864. The Post Office moved to new premises in Mari-ners Mall near the top of High Street in May 1990. The old building, a meeting place for many residents, was demolished in November 1991.

Oxley’s Hotel façade Oxley’s Hotel on the corner of London Quay and Wellington Street was established in 1870. It began as the Pier Hotel. In 1902 extensive alterations were done including the construction of the façade. After a change of owner the name Oxley’s was added in 1909. The veranda at one point was dismantled and stored but has now been refurbished and re-attached. In 1909 Katherine Mansfield’s brother Leslie and two of her sisters visited their Beauchamp grand-parents, who were then living in Waikawa Road. They stayed at Oxley’s Hotel on the water-front. Leslie was not impressed with the hotel and felt they had ‘eaten rather too many scones’. They kept an illustrated journal during the trip and send it to Katherine Mansfield in England. Arthur Beauchamp, their grandfather, was in bed when they visited and this may have provided Katherine with her idea for the ending of ‘The Voyage.’ It is also interesting that Mr Penreddy, while talking about the grandfather, says his wife had ‘knocked him up a batch of scones last week’.


The Boutique Hotel and ‘Escape to Picton’ The right of way between these two buildings is approximately the site where Arthur Beau-champ, Katherine Mansfield’s grandfather, began business in 1861, as a general merchant, stock salesman and auctioneer. The two-storeyed building built in 1902 was previously called the ‘Settlers’ Arms’ and before that the ‘5th Bank’ restaurant, in acknowledgement of its history as the fifth branch of the Bank of New Zealand.

Kiosk (opposite side of road) Harriet Beauchamp, Katherine Mansfield’s great-aunt who lived at Anakiwa, used to come up to Picton and have morning/afternoon tea at the Kiosk. She would apparently pin up her long black skirt to prevent it being creased, causing amusement to local children.

***

We now crossed London Quay to the Picton Foreshore to view some of the historic features, including the site of the old Picton Wharf where Fenella and her Granny were met by Mr Penreddy and his ‘drooping’ horse, and we proceeded to follow their trail along Waikawa Road on our shanks’ ponies.

Now the little horse pulled up before one of the shell-like houses. They got

down. Fenella put her hand on the gate, and the big trembling dew-drops

soaked through her glove-tips. Up a little path of round white pebbles they

went, with drenched sleeping flowers on each side. Grandma’s delicate white

picotees were so heavy with dew that they were fallen, but their sweet smell

was part of the cold morning. The blinds were drawn in the little house; they

mounted the steps on to the veranda. A pair of old bluchers was on one side of

the door, and a large red watering can on the other.

Postcard of Picton in the early 1900s

Reproduced courtesy of Julie Kennedy


Brooklyn Katherine Mansfield was a visitor at ‘Brooklyn’, the Picton home of J.A.R. Greensill and his family on Waikawa Road. This was demolished in 1992, and the site then became part of Marina Cove, a retirement village. In her autobiography, The Misty Isle [a reference to Ma-bel Island], John Greensill’s daughter Nina Barrer, recorded that many visitors came for af-ternoon tea or to play tennis, including the Anakiwa Beauchamps. She noted that: ‘Among these, when visiting her grandmother, in Picton, was Kathleen Beauchamp, later Katherine Mansfield.’ Waitohi House The house had a commanding view of Picton Harbour and the Picton Lagoon. The area where the Picton Marina is now situated was once a lagoon. We visited other landmarks, in-cluding the scow, the Echo, a large two-masted ‘coaster’ built in 1905. She carried timber, coal, meat and a variety of other cargo around the New Zealand coast for many years and is believed to have crossed Cook Strait approximately 15,000 times! After again crossing Lon-don Quay for a brief afternoon tea we left our shanks’ ponies and returned to Julie’s vehicle (we will use a small bus on the tour day). We set off on the journey to visit St John’s in the Wilderness Church, stopping at Picton School on the way.

Picton School Katherine Mansfield’s father, Sir Harold Beauchamp (born in Australia in 1858), attended Picton School, from 1864 to 1867. The original building was replaced by a very fine build-ing in 1889. Unfortunately that building was destroyed by fire in 1928. It was replaced by the current building, where I attended briefly in 1954. That experience inspired me to write a story, ‘The New Boy’.

St John’s in the Wilderness Church Nina Barrer could recall how Katherine would sometimes go with her father, John Greensill, to the little Koromiko church, St John’s in the Wilderness, on Sundays. In Mable Isle, she writes:

Katherine was quite attached to my father, and was sometimes chosen to drive

with him when he was filling the function of lay reader at the Sunday after-

noon service out on the road to Koromiko.

St John’s in the Wilderness is beside State Highway 1, between Blenheim and Picton. The church was consecrated on 4 April 1871, by Bishop Suter, and renovated for its centennial in 1971. It is still used for services and it still looks much the same as when Katherine Mans-field saw it. The church has a wonderful colonial atmosphere. I was also surprised and de-lighted to find that the little convenience out the back was not a ‘long-drop’ but a flushing toilet.

***

Julie returned me to the Bluebridge Terminal for the voyage back to Wellington. I was tired but extremely grateful to Julie for the fascinating and enjoyable day I had experienced, and look forward to sharing the adventure with others at some time in the future.

Kevin Boon

KMS Treasurer


Celebrating Katherine Mansfield

Events for the weekend preceding Katherine Mansfield’s 125th Birthday on Oct 14.

Music & Friendship: On Friday October 11 at: 6 p.m. (ONLY) $5.00

At St. John’s in the City (Corner of Willis and Dixon Street)

Music by Dvorak, Popper Goltermann, Trowell & Boellmann

Played by Martin Griffiths (cello) & Eleanor Carter (piano), with recitations by Fiona Oliver

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Writers’ Walk: Saturday, October 12: 10.30 a.m. to 2 p.m. $10.00 (excluding lunch)

Meet at Katherine Mansfield Sculpture (Midlands Park) at 10.30. Follow Guided tour of Writers’ Walk

along the waterfront. Optional Lunch at Portofino Restaurant at 12 noon.

(Please indicate if you wish to book for the lunch) ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Days Bay: Saturday, October 12: 2.30 p.m. – 5.30 p.m. $20.00 (excluding dinner)

Meet at Harbour Ferry Terminal (Queen’s Wharf) at 2.30. Catch Ferry to Days Bay to view the House at Days Bay where Katherine holidayed and wrote. Coffee and tea at Pavilion. Return to city by bus. (Optional) An A la Carte Dinner at the Cobar, Days Bay. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Katherine Mansfield’s Thorndon: Sunday, October 13: 10.30 a.m. to 2 p.m.

10.30 a.m. Meet at Katherine Mansfield’s Birthplace. Split into two groups for a tour of the Birthplace and for readings from A Birthday and from Chapter II of Prelude.

11.30 a.m. Proceed down Tinakori road to the Zigzag for a reading from The Wind Blows.

11.45 a.m. Retrace steps past Birthplace and turn left into Hobson Street, cross motorway bridge and turn right into Fitzherbert Terrace to K.M. Park, the site of Fitzherbert Terrace School, which Katherine attended. At the end of Fitzherbert Terrace is the U.S. Embassy, built on the site of the last house in New Zealand in which Katherine lived. We proceed along Mur-phy Street and Mulgrave Street, passing Wellington Girls College and Old St Paul’s, to the Thistle Inn.

12.30 a.m. (Optional) A la Carte Lunch at the Thistle Inn where Katherine often dined.

Cost, including entry to the Birthplace, etc., but excluding lunch = $20.00

Please wear walking clothes and bring a hat, coat or umbrella.

________________________________________________________________________________________

To book: Contact Kevin Boon (04) 4793264 or at [email protected]

(Please indicate if you wish to book for the lunches or Dinner)

________________________________________________________________________________________


I was struck, reading this biography, by the number of parallels between ‘Elizabeth’ von Ar-nim and her cousin Katherine Mansfield. Both were writers, both lived in permanent exile, and both struggled with questions of identity and belonging. ‘Elizabeth’, christened Mary Beauchamp, was born in Australia to an English father and an Australian mother. She was brought to England at the age of three, but her father had a habit of wandering around Eu-rope, so she saw quite a bit of Italy, France and Switzerland during her childhood. Like Katherine Mansfield, Mary Beauchamp was a musical prodigy, and she played the piano and the organ to high professional standards. She studied at the Royal College of Music and, on a visit to Italy, played for Liszt’s daughter Cosima Wagner.

It was here that she met the German Graf (Count) Henning von Arnim who made love to her on top of the Duomo in Florence. She married him without realising what her life as a member of the ‘Junker’ nobility in Germany would entail, and the level of rigid formali-ty did not suit her temperament. With her husband’s encouragement Mary left Berlin for their country estate, where she began to create a garden and a book, as well as another perso-na for herself. ‘Elizabeth’ was initially a fiction, but eventually she signed her letters with that name – even to her family.

The book, Elizabeth and her German Garden, was an unexpected runaway success to the extent that all her subsequent books had the author-line ‘by Elizabeth of the German Garden’. Henning von Arnim features in the book as the ‘Man of Wrath’ – which gives us a glimpse of the state of their marriage. Before the days of contraception, many relationships were ruined by a woman’s fear of pregnancy and childbirth. The ‘April, May and June’ ba-bies feature in ‘Elizabeth’s’ books, but Mary had five children altogether, a boy and four girls. Two of them were born without the comfort of chloroform, because the Germans did-n’t believe in alleviating the suffering of childbirth. After her first two, difficult, confine-ments, Mary insisted on having her children in England, but each birth was accompanied by dread, anxiety and depression. She told H.G. Wells later that she only had to think about sex to become pregnant and had had to insist that she and her husband were not in the same house to avoid conceiving again.

Between babies, Mary wrote compulsively. This biography is excellent on the novels that ‘Elizabeth’ produced in regular succession. I sometimes got lost in the discourses on ‘Elizabeth’s’ unfamiliar novels, but they are fully justified in their aim to re-establish her reputation as an important writer in the first part of the 20th century. Most people know En-

chanted April (inspired by a holiday in Portofino) and Elizabeth and her German Garden, but other novels were more controversial contributions to the literature of the period and

Elizabeth of the German Garden – A Literary

Journey

Jennifer Walker (The Book Guild, 2013) ISBN 9781846248511, 484 pages Price: £20 Website: www.bookguild.co.uk Available September 2013


have long been overlooked. Henning von Arnim had debts and money troubles (he was arrested at one point) and

soon his wife was the major earner of the family – not easy for a German Junker to accept. It put a strain on Mary too. She became a workaholic who sometimes neglected her children. One of her daughters, the inaptly named Felicitas, felt uncared for – packed off to boarding school and denied the opportunity to study music, as a punishment for bad behaviour. She died at the age of 16, leaving Mary with a legacy of guilt.

Mary was so committed to her writing that she even took employment as a governess for six months – ‘feeling perhaps that her life lacked the immediate experience of lowly sta-tus and poverty’, as Walker suggests (p.87). For another novel, The Caravaners, she went caravanning – a hilarious progression through the West Country with members of her family and friends, begging beds in people’s houses whenever possible.

E.M. Forster and Hugh Walpole came to tutor her children. Mary, swapping lives between England and Germany, made friends with many members of the English literary scene, including H.G. Wells and Bertrand Russell. When her husband died, she became em-broiled in a love affair with Wells, who was married and also involved with another woman at the time. It was all very complicated.

Mary subsequently married Bertrand Russell’s brother, the Earl Russell, giving her-self yet another identity. She was now Mary Beauchamp, Elizabeth of the German Garden, Elizabeth von Arnim, and Countess Russell. Author and mother, wife and lover, she had al-most as many identities as her cousin Katherine. Their relationship and the links between them, both personal and literary, are very well portrayed in this biography. It also fills many of the gaps left by Karen Usborne’s previous biography.

Mary’s marriage to Francis, Lord Russell, was catastrophic. She knew, even before she married him, that he was controlling and a bully, but she seemed unable to avoid her fate. He locked her in the house, refused to give her a key to the gate and treated her to vio-lent displays of temper. Mary had hoped for a soul-mate, someone who would look after her, but found only a tyrant who wreaked havoc in her life and prevented her from writing. As they both depended on her income (Earl Russell was addicted to Bridge and cocaine) it was essential for her to carry on earning.

It seems incredible now that a strong, independent woman should allow herself to be dominated and bullied in that way. The marriage lasted only a few months before Mary went to New York to visit her daughter Liebet and began the gradual process of detaching herself. Earl Russell sued the removal firm who took away her possessions while he was in London, but Mary had carefully kept all the receipts and an inventory of the items she had brought from her first marriage. There was a hilarious cross-examination about the origins of a ham-mock. But it could be established in court that everything belonged to her. Despite all this, Mary never sued for divorce and remained ‘Countess Russell’ until the end of her life. Her experiences resulted in a dark novel called Vera, reviewed favourably by Katherine Mans-field.

Mary owned a chalet at Montana in Switzerland, the Chalet Soleil, where she spent many happy months writing and entertaining friends. Katherine Mansfield became her neighbour towards the end of Katherine’s life and the two women were able to build a rela-tionship which, though fraught with misunderstanding, was underpinned by real affection and respect. It was one of Katherine’s regrets that the cousins had ‘missed each other’ earlier in their lives.

At this point in her life Mary was having a love affair with a much younger man, Al-exander Frere Reeves, the illegitimate son of one of her friends and the co-editor of Granta. She employed him at first to catalogue her library in order to finance his university studies, but the relationship soon deepened. It was scandalous at the time for a woman to have a


much younger lover and ‘Elizabeth’ made it the subject of a controversial novel, Love. Eventually Mary moved to the south of France, where she created another garden, and her love affair with Frere Reeves gradually burnt itself out as Mary aged. She was by now over sixty and struggling to come to terms with her changing physical appearance. She had a face-lift and wore a curly red wig to conceal her thinning hair. Like Katherine, she tried X-ray treatment, not for tuberculosis, but to reverse the signs of aging. The result was a small tumour beside one eye.

At the outbreak of war in 1939, Mary, worrying about the fate of one of her daugh-ters in Germany, went to America to live near another daughter, Liebet. Mary died there in 1941, shortly after publishing her last book – Mr Skeffington – which controversially dealt with anti-Semitism and was a big hit in America, where it was made into a film.

This is an excellent biography, giving much-needed consideration to the literary sta-tus of ‘Elizabeth of the German Garden’ and shedding light on aspects of Katherine Mans-field’s life too. The wider Beauchamp family formed the context in which Katherine spent her early years. Their views and their prejudices were important influences on the trajectory of her life as well as ‘Elizabeth’s’. Also important is the extent to which Katherine may have been influenced by ‘Elizabeth’s’ achievements. I personally believe that The Adventures of

Elizabeth in Rügen might have been the book that paved the way for Katherine’s In a Ger-

man Pension stories. Jennifer Walker’s book is a very welcome addition to the field of Mansfield studies, as well as an absorbing read about a fascinating woman.

Kathleen Jones

KM Biographer

CFP

Virginia Woolf Miscellany

Issue #86 –– Fall 2014

‘Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield’

The VWM invites articles on Woolf and Mansfield. Topics may include Woolf’s and Mansfield’s writings, friendship, rivalry, and shared interests; the

different ways they interconnect; literary experiments; modernist agendas; en-

gagements with social, political, economic concerns; attitudes to empire, na-

tionality, and cultural belonging. We also welcome critical perspectives on con-structions of self and identity, sexuality, ecology, critical animal studies, com-modity culture and the marketplace, and the visual arts. Please send submis-sions of no more than 2500 words to:

Kathryn Simpson ([email protected]) and Melinda Harvey ([email protected])

by March 1, 2014


In the first book-length treatment in English of Elizabeth von Arnim’s fiction, Isobel Maddi-son examines her work in its historical and intellectual contexts, demonstrating that von Ar-nim’s fine comic writing and complex and compelling narrative style reward close analysis. Organised chronologically and thematically, Maddison’s book is informed by unpublished material from the British and Huntington Libraries, including correspondence between von Arnim, her publishers and prominent contemporaries such as H.G. Wells, Bertrand Russell and her cousin Katherine Mansfield ─ whose early modernist prose is seen as indebted to von Arnim’s earlier literary influence. Maddison’s exploration of the novelist’s critical re-ception is situated within recent discussions of the ‘middlebrow’ and establishes von Arnim as a serious author among her intellectual milieu, countering the misinformed belief that the author of such novels as Elizabeth and Her German Garden, The Caravaners, The Pastor’s

Wife and Vera wrote light-hearted fiction removed from gritty reality. On the contrary, vari-ous strands of socialist thought and von Arnim’s wider political beliefs establish her as a sig-nificant author of British anti-invasion literature while weighty social issues underpin much of her later writing. Review: ‘This study of Elizabeth von Arnim’s writing is rich in its treatment of her inter-modern cultural contexts. Maddison liberates von Arnim from value judgments about popu-lar vs modernist writing by examining the distinct ways she took up concerns shared with notable modernists, including her younger cousin, Katherine Mansfield, and Virginia Woolf. This study will convince many to rediscover and enjoy her novels.’ Bonnie Kime Scott, San Diego State University, USA

Book Announcement

Elizabeth von Arnim:

Beyond the German Garden

Isobel Maddison (Ashgate, 2013) ISBN 978-1-4094-1167-3 Website price: £54 Website: http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781409411673 Published June 2013

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