In April 1916 Katherine Mansfield and John Middleton Murry arrived in Cornwall’s remote far west. They had just spent an idyllic time in Bandol in the south of France (the story about that period of their lives can be read here) but were returning to England during one of the darkest periods of the war,… Read more »
David Herbert Lawrence (1885 – 1930) was an English writer and poet. His modernist fiction focused on the inner self and the unconscious, reflecting on the dehumanising effects of industrialisation. Some of the issues Lawrence explores are sexuality, instinct and and vitality.
Virginia Woolf was thirty-four when she met Katherine Mansfield. She was older than Katherine by seven years, and firmly part of the literary establishment, yet she felt less secure about her ability as a writer and was fearful of being surpassed. Despite a fierce desire to write since childhood, Virginia’s path to that goal was… Read more »
Death of the Brother Katherine Mansfield and her lover and soon to be husband, English writer John (Jack) Middleton Murry, arrived in the South of France in November 1915. They had fled London after the devastating news that Katherine’s brother Leslie had been killed at the Western front. Of her four siblings, she had been… Read more »
Childhood Daphne du Maurier’s childhood was typical of the privileged upper classes of her time. Born on 13th May, 1907, she was the middle of three daughters to the famous actor Sir Gerald du Maurier and his actress wife Muriel Beaumont. The family had grown prosperous; the previous year Gerald had played the lead in… Read more »