Heart of Flame

- Blurb -

Katherine Mansfield adored the natural world — flowers, trees and seasons: I had so many flowers when I was little, I got to know them so well that they are simply the breath of life to me. It’s no ordinary love; it’s a passion. This passion shines through her stories, poems and letters. The characters in Prelude keep returning to the rambling garden; Taking the Veil is underpinned by a delight in spring; the pear tree in blossom is a symbol for the title Bliss; the single flower in Carnation shapes the story. Flowers always mattered — as she wrote in 1921: I have ‘planted out’ some of my petunias into a story so that they may live a little longer, and now I am looking for a favourable corner for a whole blaze of nasturtiums. Mansfield created hundreds of vivid and enduring images: a clump of toetoe waving in the wind and looking for all the world like a family of little girls drying their hair. Very large astonished daisies are beginning to flower everywhere … There was a great cabbage tree growing in the front garden and the shadow it cast on the front door was like a many-armed monster … Heart of Flame reveals the exuberance and originality of Katherine Mansfield’s words, and Jenni Shoesmith’s lively and lifelike illustrations make it easy to identify the plants she loved so much.