Mansfield: A Question of Audience

BOOK REVIEWS of a numbering system makes it difficult to locate a particular title. In the listings, collations are rudimentary and descriptions are frequently vague and inconsistent firom one title to the next. Unfortunately none of them give any indication of the frequently elaborate and flashy bindings of the volumes, which appears to be one of the principal reasons they are collected. This descriptive lack is partially remedied by the 32 colored illustrations inserted in the center of the book, which give vivid examples of some of the pictorial board covers. Viewing these makes one understand why such brilliant bindings would interest a collector, for they definitely are resplendent instances of a specific facet of popular Victorian culture. It has to be this outward aspect that attracts collectors to most of these editions and not their contents, for they generally range from reprints of popular standard authors through mediocre pot boilers to the extremely trivial and forgettable. In rare instances individual titles fit into certain subject or author collections; notably, in this initial volume there are three Edgar Saltus first English editions. Also, among the hundreds of books listed, only two are by Transition authors: a first edition of Leonard Merrick's earliest book, Mr. Bazaletta's Agent (1888), and a 1905 reprint of George Gissing's The Unchanged, though undoubtedly in succeeding volumes there will be more. Physically the hefty volume is handsome and well made, with the text presented in double columns and only occasional typographical errors, due presumably to computer setting. Even though it is rather expensive for the casual collector, it and the succeeding volumes should serve as a useful guide for those few who seek these once common books. Edwin Gilcher ______________ Cherry Plain, New York Mansfield: A Question of Audience Patrick Morrow. Katherine Mansfield's Fiction. Bowling Green: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1993. 157 pp. $29.95 Rhoda B. Nathan, ed. Critical Essays on Katherine Mansfield. New York: G. K. Hall, 1993. xiii + 236pp. $40.00 BOTH PATRICK MORROW AND RHODANATHAN seek to present a comprehensive view of Katherine Mansfield's work, making it more visible, more accessible to late twentieth-century readers. The degree to which each succeeds depends entirely on their view of their particular 387 ELT 37:3 1994 readers. Morrow's short, chatty book seeks to "give the reader an idea and a feeling for the kinds of textures and issues that KM stories have." Nathan's collection of rigorous and diverse critical essays "is designed to cast fresh light on the life and craft of a writer who has been alternately and sometimes simultaneously undervalued, overinterpreted , and categorized through the years." While Nathan's book offers scholars a long-awaited anthology of exceptionally astute and thoughtful criticism, Morrow's book introduces, summarizes, and very briefly analyzes every published story Mansfield wrote. As a "primer" to the undergraduate or unfamiliar Mansfield reader, Morrow's book is a most thorough introduction. Nathan's work is most valuable to those writers and modernist scholars working with Mansfield texts, those searching for incisive, theoretically illuminating critical work done on Mansfield's life and work. While each of these new books on Mansfield's fiction has an audience in the academy, that audience differs. At first glance, Morrow's book seems annoying and casual. He says in his acknowledgements: "Oh, sure, I had read a couple of KM short stories for my PhD comps, and later, I taught a couple more of her stories. But I really had no idea of what Katherine Mansfield was about until I went to New Zealand." This tone of casual apprehension and dismissal continues more or less throughout. From the "Basic KM Biography," to the Three Critical Perspectives on Mansfield's Fiction," to the short summaries and brief critical looks at each of the stories, Morrow is brief, instructive, often insightful, occasionally brilliant. While most of the analyses read like summaries, with little to add in terms of criticism, some, like his reading of The Garden Party," are critically astute. In Morrow's "Conclusion: KM and Other Contemporary British Short Story Writers" he is his most perturbing, brushing off readings of Mansfield and Elizabeth Bowen, James...