Blog

32 articles

SYLVIA TOWNSEND WARNER ON THE LETTERS OF KATHERINE MANSFIELD

  • 13 February 2024
  • Cherie Jacobson

In 1929, writer Sylvia Townsend Warner published a piece in The New York Herald Tribune about Katherine Mansfield’s letters, entitled ‘Death and The Lady: The Letters of Katherine Mansfield’. This blog post introduces the piece, which you can read in full.

TALKING BOOKS WITH ANNABEL LANGBEIN

  • 20 December 2023
  • Web Master

On Tuesday 28 November 2023 we were delighted to host culinary queen and lifelong adventurer Annabel Langbein for a fundraising event to support Katherine Mansfield House & Garden. Here are some of the books and writers she mentioned.

THE TALE OF OUR TYPEWRITER

  • 13 July 2023
  • Cherie Jacobson

Right in time for school holidays, you can now try writing like Katherine Mansfield! We recently purchased a Corona 3 typewriter from a local auction house, the exact same model as the one Katherine Mansfield used.

KATHERINE MANSFIELD AND CORONATIONS

  • 4 May 2023
  • Cherie Jacobson

There were two coronations during Katherine Mansfield’s lifetime – King Charles’ great-great grandfather Edward VII in August 1902, and his great-grandfather George V in June 1911. This blog post looks at her experience of them.

DIGGING INTO THE PAST

  • 27 April 2023
  • Cherie Jacobson

For New Zealand Archeology Week 2023 we look back at the archaeological work undertaken at Katherine Mansfield House & Garden between 1987 and 1998.

EVENT TO MARK 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF KATHERINE MANSFIELD'S DEATH

  • 15 January 2023
  • Cherie Jacobson

On 9 January 1923, a public event was held at the Katherine Mansfield Memorial in Katherine Mansfield Memorial Park in Thorndon, Wellington, to mark the anniversary date of the centenary of Katherine Mansfield's death.

TALKING BOOKS WITH DAME JANE CAMPION

  • 15 November 2022
  • Web Master

On Tuesday 1 November we had the privilege of hosting Dame Jane Campion for a fundraising event to support Katherine Mansfield House & Garden. Here are some of the books and writers she mentioned.

AND OTHER STORIES

  • 2 October 2022
  • Cherie Jacobson

To mark the centenary of the publication of Katherine Mansfield's third short story collection, 'The Garden Party and Other Stories', we held a winter series of readings with Wellington writers. We asked each writer to choose one of the lesser-known stories from the collection to read out loud and chat about on a Sunday afternoon. This blog post outlines the notes from each discussion.

KATHERINE AND PHOTOGRAPHY

  • 21 July 2022
  • Web Master

During her Museum and Heritage Studies placement at Katherine Mansfield House & Garden in June 2022, Louise Mitchell took a particular interest in two boxes of collection items relating to photography. She wrote this wonderful blog post about some of the objects and the development of photography during Katherine Mansfield's lifetime. (Click title to read full post)

SOME VERY SPECIAL OBJECTS

  • 23 December 2021
  • Cherie Jacobson

Te Whare Waiutuutu Kate Sheppard House in Ōtautahi Christchurch was officially opened by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on 15 December 2020. Katherine Mansfield House & Garden Director Cherie Jacobson attended the opening and explains a special connection between the two heritage properties. (Click title to read full post)

100 YEARS OF MANSFIELD AND SWITZERLAND

  • 15 December 2021
  • Cherie Jacobson

On Tuesday 16 November 2021 the Embassy of Switzerland to New Zealand and Katherine Mansfield House & Garden held an event to celebrate the centenary of Mansfield’s time in Switzerland. (Click title to read full post)

TREASURE IN THE CHILDREN'S TOY BOX

  • 24 August 2021
  • KMHG Webmaster

During her Museum and Heritage Studies placement at Katherine Mansfield House & Garden in June 2021, Ailish Wallace-Buckland took a particular interest in some of the children's toys in the collection and what they can tell us about the lives of colonial Victorian children in Wellington. She wrote this wonderful blog post to share her research. (Click title to read full post)

KAREN WALKER'S READING RECOMMENDATIONS

  • 20 August 2021
  • KMHG Webmaster

Some of those who attended our recent fundraising event 'Stories, Style and Success: An Evening with Karen Walker' have asked if we can share the titles and authors Karen spoke about when discussing her earliest memories of books, the books she loved as a teenager, and her reading habits an adult. So here is a list courtesy of Karen! (Click title to read full post)

THE GLORIOUSNESS OF TEENAGE GIRLS

  • 17 December 2020
  • Web Master

From one Wellington teenage girl to another. In Leila Barber's valedictory speech as Head Girl of Samuel Marsden Collegiate in 2020, she finds Katherine Mansfield's writing as a teenager captures something pretty special: the gloriousness of teenage girls. (Click title to read full post)

PRINTING IN THE VICTORIAN ERA

  • 22 June 2020
  • Lara van der Raaij

During the Victorian era, printers experimented with a range of different techniques to reproduce original drawings. Developments in printing techniques, including engraving and lithography, allowed for mass printing. Many of the pictures on display at Katherine Mansfield House & Garden are copies of Victorian prints. (Click title to read full post)

IMMEMORIAL: THE STORY OF THE KATHERINE MANSFIELD MEMORIAL

  • 18 May 2020
  • Cherie Jacobson

1965. New Zealand literary luminaries Frank Sargeson and Dame Ngaio Marsh pose for a photograph, walking beneath the Katherine Mansfield Memorial at the south end of Fitzherbert Terrace in Thorndon. Just a few years later, that Memorial was gone and a new one had appeared just a few hundred metres away. So what happened? (Click title to read full post)

NEW ART AT KMHG

  • 4 May 2020
  • Lara van der Raaij

Katherine Mansfield House & Garden’s recent re-interpretation introduced a number of new artworks to the house. From the Queen of Sheba to Mediterranean maidens, find out the story behind each of these four artworks, then come and find them in the house! (Click title to read full post)

MANSFIELD IN THE TIME OF COVID-19

  • 20 April 2020
  • Nicola Saker

Katherine Mansfield rarely fails to be relevant. Even now, in this time of COVID-19, Mansfield’s experience offers insight. From the cholera and typhoid outbreaks of her youth, to the 1918 influenza pandemic and the tuberculosis that would cause her death, Mansfield was no stranger to public health emergencies. (Click title to read full post)

MANSFIELD UNPLUGGED: THE POETRY OF KM

  • 6 April 2020
  • Web Master

Who was Boris Petrovsky? Lily Heron? Julian Mark? Despite the pseudonyms, Professor Jane Stafford suggests Mansfield's poetry is where we glimpse the true Mansfield, Mansfield 'unplugged'. (Click title to read full post)

REDEVELOPMENT PROGRESS AT KATHERINE MANSFIELD HOUSE & GARDEN

  • 11 September 2019
  • Lara van der Raaij

We are almost halfway through our planned time closed for reinterpretation at Katherine Mansfield House & Garden. As with any building work, we have experienced our fair share of delays and complications. However, we can update you on some progress! (Click title to read full post)

FROM VICTORIAN TO RENOVATION AND BACK: ALTERATION AND RESTORATION WORK AT 25 TINAKORI ROAD

  • 19 June 2019
  • Lara van der Raaij

In anticipation of restoration work on Katherine Mansfield House & Garden this year, here is an overview of changes that 25 Tinakori Road has gone through from its initial construction in 1888 to its opening as Katherine Mansfield Birthplace. (Click title to read full post)

NOTES ON A SPECIAL PIANO

  • 6 March 2019
  • Tamara Patten

KMHG’s lovely small John Broadwood & Sons piano was sounding very off key. An attempt to have it tuned turned into an opportunity to learn more about a very special object in the museum collection. (Click title to read full post)

FROM THE ASHES: THE BIRTH OF THE THORNDON SOCIETY AND THE RESIDENTIAL E ZONE

  • 20 February 2019
  • Lara van der Raaij

The construction of Wellington's urban motorway came at a cost to Thorndon's built heritage, including a former home of Katherine Mansfield - the setting for some of her best-known New Zealand stories. It also resulted in community lobbying for protection of built heritage, which helped ensure the preservation of Mansfield's birthplace. (Click title to read full post)

MANSFIELD GARDEN OPENS IN HAMILTON

  • 12 November 2018
  • Tamara Patten

Hamilton Gardens' newest garden has been arranged to show a slice of early 20th-century New Zealand, drawing on Katherine Mansfield's story 'The Garden Party'.

LOVE, HATE AND THE BLOOMSBURY GROUP

  • 23 December 2017
  • Sofia Roberts

We are lucky to have a huge quantity of letters left behind by the Bloomsbury Group. Their letters expressing love and hate give us a unique window into their personal lives and relationships. (Click title to read full post)

CREEPY VICTORIANS

  • 31 October 2017
  • Sofia Roberts

There’s something about historic Victorian homes that modern visitors find slightly unnerving. Why is that, and why are so many aspects of the Victorian life now associated with creepiness? (Click title to read full post)

WHEN KATHERINE MANSFIELD MET ALEISTER CROWLEY

  • 13 September 2017
  • Sofia Roberts

Aleister Crowley is best known as one of the most famous occultists in the world. He created a new religious philosophy called Thelema, and collaborated with artist Lady Frieda Harris to create the Thoth tarot deck. He was a mountaineer, writer, and painter - and a conterversial figure, then and today. (Click title to read full post)

WHAT OF THE MEDLAR?

  • 12 June 2017
  • KMHG Webmaster

At Katherine Mansfield House & Garden there is a tree that is perhaps often overlooked. Leaning over the driveway, it sheds fruit every autumn. It’s the medlar tree, a tree with deep roots in history and literature - mentioned by everyone from Chaucer to D.H. Lawrence. (Click title to read full post)

A BOUQUET FOR KATHERINE MANSFIELD

  • 21 September 2015
  • Nicola Saker

It's Spring and despite slashing southerlies, flowers are everywhere. Katherine Mansfield once declared that if she only had sixpence left for a meal, a bunch of violets for the table would come first. Her love of flowers and the natural world runs through all her work, both published short stories and her diaries and journals. (Click title to read full post)

KATHERINE MANSFIELD - FASHIONISTA

  • 5 August 2015
  • Nicola Saker

Katherine Mansfield loved clothes. Mansfield’s mercurial personality and style were clearly so arresting that we have many descriptions of her clothes. (Click title to read full post)

CHANNELLING KATHERINE'S SPIRIT

  • 15 April 2015
  • Web Master

The Katherine Mansfield Birthplace Society's successful nomination for Anzac of the Year 2015. (Click title to read full post)

CONSTANT MOTION AND KATHERINE MANSFIELD

  • 9 March 2015
  • Web Master

It is remarkable Katherine Mansfield produced as much work as she did, if you take into account the constant motion of her life after leaving New Zealand for the last time in 1908. (Click title to read full post)