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C. K. Stead was Professor of English at the University of Auckland until 1986. In 1984, he was awarded the CBE for services to New Zealand literature. He has published ten volumes of poetry, two volumes of stories and several works of criticism, and edited the Penguin Modern Classics Letters and Journals of Katherine Mansfield (1977). Mansfield is his tenth novel.
Mansfield's world is marvellously evoked -C. K. Stead has researched his subject with the sureness of a scholar but has written with the imaginative confidence of a first-class novelist. He has an uncanny ability to express the thoughts, and the voice of his young heroine. Mansfield is a splendid achievement. * Daily Telegraph * This is a different kind of writing, a writing that tinkers with the trivia of human lives. And ironically, this is where this book succeeds like a miracle, for trivia, passion, the fear of death are the arterial blood of fiction. * The Times * Fascinating-accomplishes with so much erudition, intelligence and psychological acumen * Literary Review * A fine achievement, rich in sobriety and purpose, in warmth and dazzling light. * Scotland on Sunday * One of [Mansfield's] great strengths as a writer is the interplay between the senses and the intellect and Stead's own prose captures this * Daily Telegraph * C.K.Stead has served us the most delicious, exquisitely prepared, delicately spiced Katherine Mansfield one could ever wish for, and the gourmet in me is immensely grateful... After finishing Mansfield I went back through its 246 pages trying to see 'how it is done' and, I must confess, I have no idea. A dearth of adjectives, an extraordinary accuracy of description merely through the use of verbs and nouns, the right intuition of when to comment and when to leave good enough alone, a taste for the right anecdote and a certain Mansfieldean humour that permeates the entire story from choice beginning to measured end: all these things no doubt contribute to build the moving truthful core of this novel, but they hardly explain its perfect workings. * Spectator * This is a highly intelligent and scrupulous work. As an evocation of the period it bears comparison with Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy... Maugham said of Mansfield's stories that 'not the least of her gifts was that which enabled her to give you the heartbreak that lay behind what was to all appearances a casual conversation over a cup of tea; and, heaven knows, that is not an easy thing to do.' Stead has that gift himself, and adds to it an unusual understanding of his characters. You feel Mansfield was just like that; and yet she is also Stead's Mansfield. * Scotsman * Stead leaves Katherine Mansfield still alive, still writing and hoping, at the conclusion of this excellent novel. He believes as should we all, that what is important is the life and work of our great writers, and not the manner of their death. His own latest work is a fine achievement, rich in sobriety and purpose, in warmth and dazzling light. * Scotland on Sunday *
