With the exception of the first four stories, all were written within a period of ten years. These stories, and the letters following, reflect the urgency of a writer who knew her time was limited. All but four of the texts of the stories reprinted here are versions that Mansfield herself revised or selected. Twenty excerpts from Mansfield s correspondence address the craft of writing and her own views on her work, subjects rarely broached in her many letters. "Criticism" includes eighteen essays that collectively suggest the changing emphases in how Mansfield has been read by critics. Contributors include fellow writers Rebecca West, T. S. Eliot, Katherine Anne Porter, V. S. Pritchett, Elizabeth Bowen, and Frank O Connor, as well as biographers Claire Tomalin and Vincent O Sullivan, among others. A Selected Bibliography is also included."

This is the first complete edition of Katherine Mansfield's fiction. The resurgence of interest in Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) in recent years has grown to the extent that she is now perceived as 'the most emblematic woman writer of her time'. Mansfield researchers have been frequently frustrated by the lack of a complete edition of her fiction. There are several editions of her stories in print, but these omit many pieces not already collected and published in the volumes edited by Mansfield's husband John Middleton Murry after her death, from which present 'collected' editions derive. This Edinburgh edition of her stories, published to coincide with the ninetieth anniversary of her death in 1923, is a truly complete collection of the author's fiction writing. The editors have sought to include hitherto uncollected or rarely seen stories and prose fragments as well as the instantly recognisable stories. Placed in chronological order and fully annotated with clear, concise notes, this edition undertakes a complete remapping of the author's fiction output, from her earliest childhood pieces to the pitch-perfect quality of the mature writer at the height of her craft, thereby redefining Katherine Mansfield as a writer for the twenty-first century. Key features: brings together all of Mansfield's extant fiction; refocuses critical attention on one of the most influential exponents of modernist fiction; the essential Mansfield text for individual scholars working on Mansfield studies, as well as those with a more general interest in Mansfield the writer; and, redefines Mansfield as a writer for the next generation.

Presenting thirty-five stories from seven collections published over more than forty years, Vincent O'Sullivan's Selected Stories is a milestone in the career of one of New Zealand's leading writers. `Vincent O'Sullivan's short fictions go straight to the heart of human experience. They are by turn tender, deeply moving, unsparing and often witty, endowed with a sly humour that cuts through his characters' foibles and pretensions. He is simply one of our very best storytellers, with total mastery of his craft.'-Fiona Kidman `These finely attuned, wry and deeply moving stories that have been gathered together here are executed with such compassion and grace that we might not even be aware at the time of our reading just how much they have taught us about what it is to be human and frail in this large world.'-Kirsty Gunn `Vincent O'Sullivan ranks with the best worldwide. His stories are as fine as any being written today.'-Kevin Ireland

This is the first complete edition of Katherine Mansfield's fiction. The resurgence of interest in Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) in recent years has grown to the extent that she is now perceived as 'the most emblematic woman writer of her time'. Mansfield researchers have been frequently frustrated by the lack of a complete edition of her fiction. There are several editions of her stories in print, but these omit many pieces not already collected and published in the volumes edited by Mansfield's husband John Middleton Murry after her death, from which present 'collected' editions derive. This Edinburgh edition of her stories, published to coincide with the ninetieth anniversary of her death in 1923, is a truly complete collection of the author's fiction writing. The editors have sought to include hitherto uncollected or rarely seen stories and prose fragments as well as the instantly recognisable stories. Placed in chronological order and fully annotated with clear, concise notes, this edition undertakes a complete remapping of the author's fiction output, from her earliest childhood pieces to the pitch-perfect quality of the mature writer at the height of her craft, thereby redefining Katherine Mansfield as a writer for the twenty-first century. Key features: brings together all of Mansfield's extant fiction; refocuses critical attention on one of the most influential exponents of modernist fiction; the essential Mansfield text for individual scholars working on Mansfield studies, as well as those with a more general interest in Mansfield the writer; and, redefines Mansfield as a writer for the next generation.

"A Dissertation Upon Second Fiddles", first published in 1902 is a collection of four, slightly interconnected, stories. O'Sullivan's characters flit between the stories, all of which have a slightly moralistic purpose. However, O'Sullivan's macabre sense of humour ensures that the tales do not preach, and he puts his black wit to good use in this hard-to-find collection. "Of Kindred" describes a mysterious German stranger proffering advice to the large and corpulent Sir Hugh Anger so that he can resolve his hypochondria and live a longer, healthier life. "Of Accomplices" is the story of Shawlcoat Vellery, a good and virtuous man, who rather bored with his righteousness, comes across the anarchical and nihilistic Labour Argan. Vellery decides to act as Argan's henchman in various schemes but the results are not as anticipated. "Of Friends" describes Nicolas and his wife Hester. The pompous Nicolas is persuaded to make a speech for a local politician but it ends disastrously when Nicolas is attacked and beaten by ruffians. While Nicolas is recovering in bed, the MP, a portly gentleman of some 50 years, who has admired Nicolas's russet-haired wife with her "strong white neck, and the perfect and most pleasing harmony of her whole frame", takes his chance to try "to beat down the guard" of the unfortunate Hester. "Of Enemies" is the tale of a flighty, yet pretty, novelist, Mrs Ardour, who comes across a short story in an obscure magazine. She decides to steal the plot and sets on writing a novel based on the story. When the original writer discovers this plagiarism, Mrs Ardour uses all her skills and wiles to ruin him completely.

"To help a man is like reviving an assassin who has designs on your life. ... A sense of obligation engenders a sense of hate." This book of monologues contains twenty-five short, pithy, often cynical, prose pieces from the acerbic pen of the late nineteenth-century writer, Vincent O'Sullivan. First published in 1899, the collection captures the aesthetics of the Decadence movement with its emphasis on excess, transgression and sensuality. O'Sullivan's circle included Oscar Wilde, Leonard Smithers, Aubrey Beardsley and other fin-de-siecle luminaries. O'Sullivan provides each monologue with an enigmatic mononym, such as 'Sob', 'Wear', 'Crave'. A concept that is extended in this edition by the inclusion of images, notably Beardsley's "The Litany of Mary Magdalen", to accompany, but not necessarily to illustrate, the prose. Vincent O'Sullivan (1868-1940) was born into a prosperous Irish American family in New York and moved to London as a child. He spent much of his life in the demi-monde world that is the setting of his books and stories, ultimately dying penniless and being buried in a pauper's grave in Paris.