Katherine Mansfield in Wellington, New Zealand

Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923) was born Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp at 25 Tinakori Road, Thorndon, Wellington, New Zealand, which is now a museum. The photo on the above leaflet shows Mansfield in 1921, surrounded by a representation of the original wallpaper from the house. Her parents were businessman Harold Beauchamp and his wife Annie (née Dyer).

 

The family moved to Karori when Katherine was four or five years old.

She only remained in New Zealand until 1908, when she left for England, and died just fifteen years later at Gurdjieff's Institute for the Harmonius Development of Man in Fontainebleau, France, at the age of thirty-four.

 

Photography is not allowed in the house.

 

'KATHERINE MANSFIELD BIRTHPLACE

RESTORED HOUSE OPENED BY

HER EXCELLENCY LADY REEVES

14 OCTOBER 1988 CENTENARY

OF THE WRITER'S BIRTH

 

KATHERINE MANSFIELD BIRTHPLACE SOCIETY

PATRON HER EXCELLENCY LADY REEVES

PRESIDENT OROYA DAY

PRINCIPAL ARCHITECT JAMES BEARD

ARCHITECT MARTIN HILL'

 

The Heritage Garden.

 

The Thistle Inn at 3 Mulgrave Street, Thorndon, was built in 1840, burned down in 1866 and rebuilt the same year. Katherine Mansfield's one-page story 'Leves Amores' was written when she was nineteen and begins 'I can never forget the Thistle Hotel'. The unnamed narrator lives in a room opposite a woman in the hotel and one evening invites her to dine and then to the opera. They return to the hotel and the evidently previously sexually charged evening becomes much more sexually charged. Although the sex of the narrator is not mentioned, many have read this as a lesbian story: curiously, she gave it to her father's secretary Matty Putnam to type out, and sent a copy to Vere Bartrick-Baker*, who held onto it until her death.

 

*A friend from when they were at Queen's College, London.

 

There is a link to the story below, along with a link to my review of Claire Tomalin's biography, plus Mansfield in Avon, France:

 

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'Leves Amores', by Katherine Mansfield
Claire Tomalin: Katherine Mansfield: A Secret Life (1987)
Katherine Mansfield and Gurdjieff in Avon, France