Journal of Katherine Mansfield (1927)

This has the hallmark of what we expect from Mansfield - an almost uncomfortably intense interest in the truth, the undertruth and the searing truth. She is, naturally, particularly open and honest in these entries, as she deals with her illness and ennui, her waxing and waning relationship with John Middleton Murry and her irritations with people and life itself. The constant wars with her 'companion' LM (Ida Baker) punctuate this with intriguing bursts which are only faintly explicated - a reread of Katherine Mansfield: The Memories of LM is called for I think. Ranging from her early 'huge complaining diaries' in a sole saved scrap from 1910, through the period of dissatisfaction following the publication of In a German Pension, and her re-emergence just as the illness was really starting to take hold and make it hard to work, this journal is a record of a sometimes harsh human being, definitely not 'easy work', whose dedication to uncovering her inner daemon and following her own flag made for drama in spades. Murry's notes are sparing and useful in giving terms and locale for the action of Mansfield's changing mind. His final note, speaking of an extraordinary transformative peace and beauty which settled on her at Fontainebleau just as her time was up, is a moving and fitting finale.