Katherine Mansfield – Chronology

October 26, 2020 Leave a comment
1884 Harold Beauchamp marries Annie Burnell Dyer in Wellington New Zealand. The household includes her sisters (Belle and Kitty) and mother Margaret Mansfield Dyer.
1885 Vera Beauchamp born
1887 Charlotte (Chaddie) Beauchamp born
1888 Oct 14th Katherine Mansfield Beauchamp born at 11 Tinakori Rd., Wellington NZ
1889 Aug 6th John Middleton Murry born in London.
1890 Gwen Beauchamp born but dies three months later.
1892 Jeanne Beauchamp born.
1893 Beauchamps move to Chesney Wold, Karori. (The setting for At the Bay)
1894 Leslie Heron Beauchamp (Chummie) born.
1898 Harold Beauchamp made a Director of the Bank of NZ. Move to 75 Tinakori Rd. Holiday house at 3 Main Rd., Day’s Bay.
1898/1899 KM at Wellington Girls High School. Writes ‘Enna Blake’ for the school magazine..
1900/01 Beginning of Katherine’s relationship with the Trowell family. Cello lessons. In love with Arnold Trowell, twin brother of Garnet.
1903 jan To England with sisters Vera and Chaddie to study at Queen’s College. Meets Ida Baker.
1906
KM begins ‘Juliet’. Returns to New Zealand.
Dec. Death of Granny Dyer.
1907
Harold becomes Chairman of the Bank of NZ . Buys 47 Fitzherbert Terrace in the centre of Wellington. KM’s relationships with Maata Mahupuku and Edith Bendall. Mr & Mrs Trowell move back to London to make a home for their sons who are studying music in Europe.
Oct First 3 stories published in The Native Companion. Writes Botanical Gardens and In a Cafe
Nov/Dec Urewera trip.
1908
Jul Returns to London alone. Arrives Plymouth Aug.24th 1908. Stays at Beauchamp Lodge – a hostel for young professional women.
Sept. Begins love affair with Garnet Trowell.
Nov/Dec Moves in with Trowells at Carlton Hill
Dec/Nov. Begins to suspect that she may be pregnant. Meets George Bowden.
End Dec/Jan Thrown out by the Trowells – according to their daughter Dolly because they discovered that KM was pregnant.
1909
Jan 25th Goes to Liverpool to see Garnet.
Mar 2nd Marries George Bowden and leaves him straight away without consummating the marriage.
8th March Goes to Glasgow to stay with Garnet.
17th March Marriage announced in the Times. Her relationship with Garnet is over.
Apr 8th Katherine visits Belgium.
May 27th Mrs Beauchamp arrives. Takes KM to Worishofen in Germany
June 10th Mrs Beauchamp goes back to NZ.
June/July KM loses the baby. Begins her German Pension stories.
Oct/Nov Meets Floryan Sobieniowski. They become lovers and plan to live together in Paris.
Dec/Jan KM returns to England suddenly and demands that George Bowden lives with her as husband and wife.
1910
Feb 24th Introduction to A.R. Orage at the New Age. Publication of The Child who was Tired.
Mar Operation for peritonitis. Removal of fallopian tube. KM leaves Bowden and convalesces with Ida at Rottingdean.
May KM has ‘rheumatic fever’. Friendship with Beatrice Hastings and Orage.
Aug Return to London. Living at 131 Cheyne Walk. Affairs with William Orton and Francis Heinemann.
1911
Jan KM living at 69 Clovelly Mansions, Greys Inn Rd. (now 19 Churston Mansions).
Apr Katherine suspects that she may be pregnant again. ?Abortion.
Post Impressionist Exhibition put on by Roger Fry.
May/Oct 6 ‘German Pension’ stories in New Age edited by Orage.
June Beauchamps visit England for the Coronation and stay until March 1912.
Autumn John Middleton Murry begins publication of Rhythm. Contracts gonorrhea.
Dec Publication of In A German Pension collection by Stephen Swift. KM meets JMM at one of the parties given to celebrate. JMM agrees to print The Woman at the Store, in Rhythm. pub Spring 1912 + 2 poems.
1912
Feb JMM comes to KM’s flat for tea.
Apr JMM moves in as KM’s lodger. KM becomes assistant editor of Rhythm. Shortly afterwards they become lovers.
May KM and JMM go to Paris where she meets JD Fergusson, Anne Estelle Rice and Francis Carco. KM quarrels with the editors of the New Age, Beatrice Hastings and A.R. Orage.
June KM and JMM meet Henri Gaudier and his girlfriend Sophie Brzeska.
Aug/Sept Forced to leave Clovelly Mansions as landlord disapproves of unmarried couple. Move to cottage at Runcton, nr Chichester.
Sept/Oct Floryan arrives and moves in. Quarrel with Gaudier Brzeskas.
Oct Rhythm’s publisher disappears. Katherine pledges her allowance towards the debt.
Nov Living in a cheap room in Chancery Lane. Floryan finally persuaded to leave.
1913
Jan KM rents the Mill House at Cholesbury, Bucks.
Meets DH Lawrence and Frieda Weekley.
May Rhythm becomes The Blue Review for only 3 issues.
Jul Living at 8 Chaucer Mansions, Barons Court. Unable to fund the debts left by Rhythm.
Dec KM & JMM go to Paris – 31 Rue de Tournon nr Luxembourg Gdns. Closer relationship with Carco. Murry declared bankrupt.
1914
Feb Beaufort Mansions, Chelsea. Then 102 Edith Grove, (off Fulham Rd). Katherine finds the communal facilities sordid.
Mar Ida Baker goes to live with her father in Rhodesia.
Jul Arthur St. Chelsea (now Dove St.) Full of bugs.
Jul Lawrence’s marriage to Frieda.
Aug.4th Outbreak of World War I
Oct K & J stay with the Lawrences in Buckinghamshire then move to Rose Tree Cottage nr Gt. Missenden. KM meets Samuel Koteliansky (Kot).
1915
Feb KM leaves JMM for Francis Carco, but returns.
Mar 18th KM goes back to stay in Carco’s empty flat at 13 Quai aux Fleurs nr Notre Dames, where she begins The Aloe.
Mar 31st Back to Murry at 95 Elgin Cres., Notting Hill. Then returns to Paris.
Jul 15th Takes the lease of 5 Acacia Rd., St John’s Wood.
Summer Leslie Beauchamp comes to England.
Sep Signature Magazine – a collaboration with D.H. Lawrence.
Oct Leslie Beauchamp is killed in France.
Nov KM’s first meeting with Dorothy Brett. Publishes ‘Stay-Laces’ in the New Age.
Nov/Dec KM and JMM move to Bandol in France near Marseille. Hotel Beau Rivage and then the Villa Pauline. KM continues to write ‘The Aloe’. Begins an intimate correspondence with Frederick Goodyear, who is in love with her.
1916
Feb The Lawrences take a house in Cornwall at Zennor.
Apr KM & JMM return to England and move to Zennor, Cornwall to live with the Lawrences.
May KM & JMM leave and move to Mylor in Sth Cornwall. Goodyear visits.
Jul KM’s first weekend at Garsington, invited by Ottoline Morrell.
Aug JMM takes job at the War Office to avoid conscription.
Sep KM returns to London, to 3 Gower St owned by Maynard Keynes and shared by Dorothy Brett and Carrington. KM hates it.
Sep Ida returns from Rhodesia to take up war work.
Nov KM begins a friendship with Bertrand Russell.
Xmas KM and JMM at Garsington. Lytton Strachey and Bertrand Russell. Play ‘The Laurels’.
1917
Feb KM moves into a studio at 141a Old Church St., Chelsea. JMM moves to 47 Redcliffe Rd. Begins a friendship with Virginia Woolf.
Apr Virginia Woolf asks Katherine for a story for the Hogarth Press. She is given The Aloe.
May Katherine returns to the New Age with ‘Two Tuppeny Ones Please’, ‘Late at Night’, ‘The Black Cap’, ‘In Confidence’, and ‘The Common Round’.
May Frederick Goodyear is killed in France.
Jun ‘A Picnic’ and ‘Mr Reginald Peacock’s Day’ published in the New Age.
Aug Katherine stays at Asheham with Virginia Woolf.
Aug/Sept JMM’s younger brother Richard Murry working on the farm at Garsington as pacifist. Katherine suspects JMM of conducting an affair with Ottoline Morrell. Her friendship with Ottoline breaks down.
Dec Katherine ill with congestion of the lung. Is advised that it may be tubercular. She consults several doctors.
1918 JMM becomes Chief Censor at the War Office. KM very ill.
Jan Diagnosis of TB. Advised not to spend the winter in England. KM sets out alone for Bandol.
Feb Ida arrives in Bandol to look after Katherine.
Feb 19th KM’s first haemorrhage.
Mar KM decides to return to London
Mar/Apr Stranded in Paris with LM.
Apr 29th Divorce from Bowden made absolute.
May 3rd KM’s marriage to JMM. Ferguson & Brett witnesses. Living at 47 Redcliffe Rd.
May 17th Anne Estelle Rice Drey arranges for KM to stay at the Headland Hotel at Looe in Cornwall to recuperate.
Jul Prelude published by Hogarth Press. Bliss published in English Review.
Aug 8th KM’s mother, Annie Burnell Beauchamp dies in New Zealand after an operation.
Aug 26th Move to ‘The Elephant’, 2 Portland villas, East Heath Rd., Hampstead.
Autumn KM sees DH Lawrence for the last time in London.
Oct Dr Sorapure tells her how serious her TB really is. He also suspects that she has had gonorrhea. She does not tell anyone about this, or seek a second opinion.
Dec The Heron Press (run by JMM and his brother Richard) publish ‘Je ne Parle pas Francais’, as well as poems by JMM.
1919
Jan/Feb JMM becomes editor of the Athenaeum. OBE for war work.
KM and Koteliansky collaborate on translations of Chekhov’s letters and diaries as well as Gorky and Dostoevsky. KM becomes a reviewer for the Athenaeum.
Summer KM has an increasingly close friendship with Virginia Woolf. Harold Beauchamp visits London. It’s the first time Katherine has seen him since 1912. He and Murry do not get on.
Sept 14th KM leaves England for San Remo after making her will.
Oct 14th KM staying at 31 Casetta Deerholm, Ospedaletti with LM.
Nov Harold Beauchamp visits KM.
Dec Dr Foster tells KM the extent of her disease.
Dec 4th KM asks Murry to come out to her at Ospadelletti and he refuses. The New Husband poem. Turning point in their relationship.
Dec 16th Murry arrives in Ospedaletti and there is a reconciliation.
1920
Jan 2nd JMM goes back to England.
Jan Connie Beauchamp and Jinnie Fullerton rescue KM and take her to Menton.
Feb KM receives a cruel letter from Lawrence.
Feb/Mar Harold Beauchamp marries Laura Kate Bright back in New Zealand.
Apr KM meets Sydney and Violet Schiff. Returns to Hampstead for 4 months. Renewal of her friendship with Virginia Woolf.
Jun KM publishes first stories in the Athenaeum.
Aug KM suspects JMM is having a love affair with Brett.
Sep 13th Return to Menton and Villa Isola Bella with Ida.
Sep Floryan’s blackmail attempt. Letters bought for £40 and burnt.
Dec Constable publish Bliss collection.
Nov/Dec JMM’s love affair with Princess Bibesco.
Dec JMM goes to Menton.
Winter KM gets JB Pinker as her agent.
1921
Feb JMM resigns as editor of Athenaeum and goes back to Menton.
May 4th KM moves from Menton to Switzerland with Ida. Consults Henry Spahlinger, a Swiss bacteriologist who claims to have developed a serum that could cure TB.
Jul KM rents Chalet des Sapins near Sierre with Murry. Her cousin Elizabeth von Arnim lives nearby. Ida lodges in the village.
Jul/Dec Katherine writes many of her most important stories. Her health deteriorates.
1922
Jan Orage sends JMM Cosmic Anatomy to review. KM reads it and begins to be interested in Ouspensky.
Jan 30th KM goes to Paris with Ida to see Dr Manoukhin about radiation treatment.
Feb 11th JMM joins her briefly before going back to Sierre.
Jun The treatment is not a success. KM returns to Sierre accompanied by JMM. They separate after a quarrel. Ida returns to look after Katherine.
Feb 23rd Publication of The Garden Party by Constable.
Aug 15th KM sets her affairs in order. Makes a will before returning to London with Ida and JMM. Stays at Brett’s house. JMM is staying elsewhere. Meets Ouspensky through Orage and discusses Gurdjieff.
Oct 2nd To Paris with Ida and then to the Gurdjieff Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man near Fontainbleau.
Oct 20th Ida leaves KM at the Institute and takes a job on a nearby farm.
1923
Jan 9th KM invites Murry to the Institute because she feels that she would like to see him again. In the evening, Katherine dies.
Jan 12th Funeral at Avon, nr Fontainebleau.
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