Product Description
This collection of short stories includes "The Story of an Hour" about the author's childhood, "An Egyptian Cigarette", the story of a drug trip and the title piece about a sweet-voiced soprano who learns about adult life. Kate Chopin is also the author of "The Awakening". ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Worthwhile--Connected to The Awakening
This is an excellent book, written around and shortly after the time of Chopin's feminist classic, The Awakening.The editors have seemingly put together the collection that was rejected by publishers after The Awakeningbecame a scandal.The stories are well worth reading.Withing its pagesare "The Story of an Hour," one of her classic charactersketches; "Lilacs," a poignant story about leave-taking and thecost of freedom; "Her Letters," a predictable but touching storyof love and obsession in the aftermath of a spouse's death; and the titlestory, an intriguing story concerning gypsies and religion.Catholicism asa theme runs throughout the collection.Some of these seem to be moreoccassional pieces, and on the whole, there is some uneveness, but adelightful and worthwhile experience nonetheless ... Read more

Product Description
In the decade prior to her landmark novel, "The Awakening", Kate Chopin wrote about 90 short stories, a selection of which appeared in "Bayou Folk", and "A Night in Acadie", both reproduced in this text. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Item shipped was mis-represented.
The book I ordered was advertised as new. The one that I received was filled with notations by a previous reader. I was unable to find any means on the Amazon website to report this mis-representation. I was cheated.

Classic- Buy/read this book, it's worth it!
Kate Chopin is one of the best writers ever. She is worth reading for that fact alone. (Period)
Chopin's stories are culturally significant for a diverse and stirred up post Civil War Louisiana society. They are humanly sigificant. She is sensitive and fair-minded.
Chopin has been criticized for not holding 21st Century values and criticizing the racist/sexist/elitist world she lived in. However, she has done better. She has reported things 'as they were'. That's what makes these stories important. (If she were to be editorial, I'd wonder what she has to say about us. I doubt she'd see social improvement.)
Chopin was lost in obscurity following her novella, The Awakening. Rediscovery, awareness, and interest came in the '70's, catalyzed by the feminist movement.
I discovered Chopin in an anthology, Forms of the Novella (David H. Richter, 1981, Knopf), which contains The Awakening. (Buy Forms of the Novella next.) My reaction was interesting. Despite recognizing the greatness of Chopin as a writer, I was deeply disturbed by this story and doubted whether I wanted to read more. Learning of the feminist connection also made me uneasy. It made me think she had an 'agenda'. Curiosity prevailed. My trepidation was inappropriate. Chopin is the least sexist writer I can think of. She laughs at men & women, and cries with them, equally.
These stories are delightful! If you can read, read them! Even the ones that are fluffy and predictable are worth the read (see my first sentence).

Kate Chopin Short Stories
I loved this book!It is a collection of short stories, originally published singly in magazines.They provide a snapshot of life in Louisiana in the late 19th century, and truly fulfill this reader's desire to be transported to a different time and place.

In each story, often only a few pages long, the author paints a vivid picture a the characters, their circumstances, and motivations.

The theme of all the stories is change.Although the turns of events described are generally not monumental, they are often the catalyst for a significant change in a character.And sometimes the point is that there is no change. ... Read more

Product Description

"Toth and Seyersted's well-organized, carefully edited volume makes available all manuscripts and related items from all archival collections.... This volume is essential for American literature collections." -- Choice

An edition of the primarily unpublished papers of Kate Chopin, author of the feminist classic The Awakening. These papers illuminate the growth of Chopin as a writer, reveal the reactions of critics to her work, and settle a number of controversies in Chopin studies.

Customer Reviews (1)

Complete collection of Chopin's journals and private papers.
i really enjoyed reading chopin's private papers -

although what we have left of chopin's personal documets are minimal, this book contains all of it.

still, we can continue to infer and speculate on her life.chopincan be seen as a young and budding woman while she schooled at the sacredheart.and, then travel with her on her eye-opening honeymoon toeurope.

this book lends us a more closer look at one of the great femalewriters of the 19th century. ... Read more

Product Description
One of the most often repeated anecdotes about the direction of literary studies over the past three decades concerns a graduate student who complained of reading Kate Chopin's The Awakening in three classes and Herman Melville's Moby Dick in none. But Chopin has not always been featured in the literary curriculum. Though she achieved national success in her lifetime (1850-1904) as a writer of Louisiana "local color" fiction, after her death her work fell into obscurity until 1969, when Norwegian literary scholar Per Seyersted published The Complete Works of Kate Chopin and sparked a remarkable American literary revival. Chopin soon became a major presence in the canon and today, every college textbook surveying American literature contains a Chopin short story, her novel The Awakening, or an excerpt from it.

In this unique work, twelve prominent Chopin scholars reflect on their parts in the Kate Chopin revival and its impact on their careers. A generation ago, against powerful odds, many of them staked their reputations on the belief--now fully validated--that Chopin is one of America's essential writers. These scholars energetically sponsored Chopin's works in the 1970s and 1980s and encouraged reading, studying, and teaching Chopin. They wrote books and articles about her, gave talks about her, offered interviews to newspapers and magazines, taught her works in their classes, and urged their colleagues to do the same, helping to build a network of teachers, students, editors, journalists, librarians, and others who continue to promote Chopin's work. Throughout, these essays stress several elements vital to the revival's success. Timing proved critical, as the rise of the women's movement and the emergence of new sexual norms in the 1960s helped set an ideal context for Chopin in the United States and abroad in the 1970s and 1980s. Seyersted's biography of Chopin and his accurate texts of her entire oeuvre allowed scholars to quickly publish their analyses of her work. Popular media--including Redbook, The New York Times, and PBS--took notice of Chopin and advanced her work outside the scholarly realm. But in the final analysis, as the contributors point out, Kate Chopin's irresistible writing itself made her revival possible.

Highly personal, at times amusing, and always thought provoking, these revealing recollections and new critical insights offer a fascinating firsthand account of a decisive moment in American literary history. ... Read more

Product Description
Although she enjoyed only modest success during her lifetime, Kate Chopin is now recognised as a unique voice in American literature. Her seminal novel, The Awakening, published in 1899, explored new and startling territory, and stunned readers with its frank depiction of the limits of marriage and motherhood. Chopin's aesthetic tastes and cultural influences were drawn from both the European and American traditions, and her manipulation of her 'foreignness' contributed to the composition of a complex voice that was strikingly different to that of her contemporaries. The essays in this Companion treat a wide range of Chopin's stories and novels, drawing her relationship with other writers, genres and literary developments, and pay close attention to the transatlantic dimension of her work. The result is a collection that brings a fresh perspective to Chopin's writing, one that will appeal to researchers and students of American, nineteenth-century, and feminist literature. ... Read more

Product Description

This is the true, unvarnished life story of the girl who grew up to write The Awakening, a masterpiece published 100 years ago. With its portrayal of a woman whose sexual desires take her outside marriage, it rocked American literature's cozy conception of womanhood.

In Unveiling Kate Chopin Emily Toth, the foremost authority on Chopin's life and works, creates a sharply revealing portrait of a modern woman in a Victorian world. Born in St. Louis in 1850, Kate O'Flaherty was raised by wealthy, feisty widows and educated by brilliant nuns. She endured a mysterious "outrage" committed against her by Union soldiers in her teens and suffered what moderns now call a "loss of voice." But she survived to become a lively, dangerously clever social observer.

She had the talent and then the life experiences to become a writer. Her Louisiana-born husband, Oscar Chopin, had grown up in France and did not restrict her. In New Orleans (where she gossiped with the painter Edgar Degas) and then in rural Louisiana (where the neighbors hated her), Kate produced six children in nine years. Yet she retained her individuality and her wicked sense of humor. After her husband's sudden death, Kate's affair with another woman's husband was a village scandal--but following the lessons of the French women who raised her, she knew when to leave.

After the death of her mother, Kate reinvented herself as the author of engaging short stories set in Louisiana. Many had unusual social messages. "In Sabine" opposed domestic violence. "At the 'Cadian Ball" supported sexual expression for women. "Odalie Misses Mass" suggested that interracial friendships between African American and white women were possible. She condemned the idle rich and celebrated single mothers. To promote her own career, she created the first salon in St. Louis and became the first woman in the city to become a professional fiction writer. Although she claimed to be un-serious about her craft, newly discovered manuscripts, which Toth mines for the insights they offer, reveal her as a dedicated artist who wanted to reach her readers' hearts.

Toth portrays Chopin as a bright, ambitious woman who ruffled staid souls, and when she published The Awakening, her foes pounced. Many reviews of the novel were uncomprehending; many were vicious and her next book was canceled. Her family suffered; her health declined; and Chopin died in 1904, silenced ahead of her time. Now, a century later, Toth sees Chopin as a woman of unique wit and astonishing talent and as the daring author who wrote the most radical, notorious American novel of the late nineteenth century.

Emily Toth, a professor of English and Women's Studies at Louisiana State University, is the author or editor of ten books, including Kate Chopin's Private Papers, "A Vocation and a Voice": Stories by Kate Chopin, and Ms. Mentor's Impeccable Advice for Women in Academia. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

unwarranted conclusions
I hope this is a good biography of Kate Chopin, an author whose work I admire.However, if you read this book, I suggest you be very careful of trusting any conclusions the author reaches based on anything less than complete evidence.

Emily Toth makes many assumptions and interpretations which are shaky at best.For example:

Bud Aiken is a representation of Albert Sampite because they share an initial (A).That's weak at best.

Alcee Arobin is a representation of Albert Sampite because the first and last pieces of Albert Sampite's name make Alcee, thus:Al---- -----e becomes Alcee ... say what?

Early on, Toth says evidence suggests that Oscar Chopin helped his mother escape from her husband's (his father's) house.Most of her evidence is based on her interpretation of Oscar's character and what he would have done.Later in the book, she states Oscar's assistance to his mother as an established fact!

I could go on and on but that's enough to give you the idea.

Also, Toth's writing is overblown and florid, especially at the ends of paragraphs where she states her conclusions.

Probably Toth's underlying research and scholarship are sound.It's a pity she marred the book with conclusions she seems to want to be true, and writing that doesn't serve the subjecct.

The Awakening: the rest of the story
Emily Toth wrote Unveiling Kate Chopin after the remarkable recent discovery of Chopin's diaries and manuscripts.This intimate perspective paints a whole new picture of her life and work.Throughout thisbiography, Toth draws parallels between actual experiences from Chopin'slife to characters and incidents in her writing.Suddenly, her storieshave new depth of meaning. Toth begins her saga when sixteen-year-oldEliza Faris, a genuine Creole, married thirty-nine-year-old ThomasO'Flaherty, a wealthy businessman in St. Louis. A domineering patriarch,O'Flaherty sent his daughter Kate away to boarding school at age five. Although the reason why is unknown, Toth suggests "a dark family dramatriggered sending Kate away."Shortly after this, Thomas O'Flahertydied in a tragic train wreck, and Kate came home to stay.This incident ofher father's death closely parallels Chopin's "The Story of anHour," with a different twist at the end. Toth describes Chopin'schildhood as a paradise dominated by women. Life bloomed until the CivilWar brought the invasion of the Union army to St. Louis.Speaking outagainst the Union, Kate herself narrowly escaped imprisonment. Unionsoldiers intruded the family's home, committing, what Toth refers to as, an"outrage." Chopin married a sensitive and wealthy young LouisianaFrenchman, Oscar Chopin.A non-conformist, Kate never quite fit in withhis people, displaying such radical behavior as smoking, walking alone,riding bareback and astride, and lifting her skirts to provocatively showher ankles.It is no wonder that she felt like an outsider, similar toEdna Pontellier in The Awakening.After her husband's death, Kate begandeveloping as a professional writer, following the classic rule of"Write about what you know," and submitting her stories tonewspapers and magazines.She learned that as long as her heroines nevertriumphed over their men, they were accepted. Her passion was for exposingthe realism of social problems women faced in a world where men wrote therules.Audiences embraced her book Bayou Folk, yet they looked past thecourageous qualities of the women characters, seeing only the quaint localcolor.In April, 1899 Chopin published her finest work, The Awakening. The crushing reviews of her masterpiece labeled it "morbid,""unhealthy,""not wholesome," "shocking,""crude" and "sex fiction." Thus the novel modernaudiences celebrate Kate Chopin for writing, brought her career to ascandalous end. Like Edna in The Awakening, naked and unveiled to theworld, she had swum out too far. Chopin died a few years later in 1904.Toth portrays Chopin as a brilliant creative woman with the courage tobrave the controversy against conventional traditions of Victorian America.She captures the sensitive world where Chopin bloomed and relates how itcultivated the genius who wrote of subjects nearly a century ahead of hertime. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

great story
i loved this story it was so intersting and you could take it so many different ways

The Most Interesting Story I Have Ever Read
I like this story because it got right to the point.Also, it told of what happens to people, but nobody usually wants anybody to know.

Exellent book I recomend!
This book has been closely analysed by me and my fellow students at Vesalius College in Brussels.My oppinion was that Mrs.Mallard was delighted to be freed from her husband. According to my teacher and some students shereally loved her husband but I would strongly disagree. She hated him andsaw the opportunity of finally living her own life. "Spring days, andsummer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own" Doesn't thatsentence say it all?Please correct me if I am wrong.

This story is Touching...
This story is touching,and this is how I wish to express character's feelings to my readers. Notice the stairway in the end, and the way the foil of this story shields Mrs. Mallards vision from seeing her unwantedhusband who, against Mrs. Mallard's wishes,still lives. I can't tell youthe rest, but reading this story is good for you people who like shockingclimaxes.

Very quick and to the point of the story.
I liked how the author used the characters to show what she wanted tostate which was that Mrs.Mallard wanted to be free. ... Read more

Product Description
Nine realistic portraits of black and white inhabitants of Louisiana’s bayou and urban areas, among them "A Night in Acadie," "A Respectable Woman," "The Dream of an Hour" and the title story. Written with grace, delicate humor and a keen understanding of the female psyche.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Creol blues
I came on this book by chance, having never heard or Kate Chopin or her more famous book "The Awakening." This slim volume of short stories is my only experience with her still.

The easy pace of the stories, the charming lilt and rhythm of the dialogs, gives a good impression of bayou life, something that I am not very familiar with. Pace is something in common with all of the selections, with none of the characters getting very excited or overwrought, even in the midst of a fight or falling in love."The Big Easy," they call it, and I believe it from these tales.They are small, psychological portraits, well written and engaging.

"Desirees Baby" was an almost Lovecraftian psychological horror tale, of hidden ancestries creeping unwanted across generations. "The Dream of an Hour" is in a similar vein, with a twist ending.Most of the stories are gentle, understated love stories both romantic ("A Night in Acadie") sad ("At the Cadian Ball," "Azelie,"), forbidden ("A Respectable Woman") and funny ("MadameCelestins Divorce.")I must admit to being charmed by each love story, and hoped the best for everyone involved."A Pair of Silk Stockings" and "A Gentleman of the Bayou Teche" are both brief glimpses into a small world, and equally good.

I am glad to be introduced to Kate Chopin, and look forward to seeking out "The Awakening."

A Bargain
The first story alone was worth the [money] I paid for this book.It was a sad, gentle social commentary (or maybe not so gentle) that seems very much like the work of someone who would raise so much public outcry (for "The Awakening") that she would never be published again.One or two of the stories struck me as being bitter, but the others were up to her current day reputation.Many of the stories hinge on careful character studies of Acadians, the Acadians being descendants of French families relocated to the United States when Canada become unarguably British.The French dialect used in some of the stories only made the collection richer, in my mind.It would have seemed false to have these people speaking proper English.On reading the other reviews, I tend to agree that it might be a good idea to skip this book and buy Bayou Folk or another more thorough collection.If you know you love Kate Chopin's writing, do that.Otherwise, this collection is a good introduction although it can't beat "The Awakening."

Translation, please
Some of these stories were a mere five pages long, so when i first started reading this collection, i thought i'd be done in no time at all.Of course, i had not realized Kate Chopin had some of her characters speak in dialect.This is something that i have never been able to overcome.There is a reason why written language is standardized, so that it is comprehensible!I don't care if it's in English or Spanish; i have a hard time going through that kind of text.Those stories took me a long time to read, and eventually i lost interest and skipped through entire paragraphs.

The best story, in my opinion, is the one that gives name to the collection.We are creature comforts, and need the occasional pampering.The woman in the story lets herself be spoiled just for one day, no matter how good and unselfish her intentions were for the money.I can identify with her weakness.

The 'romantic' stories were quite bland, and that, combined with the incomprehensible Acadian-speak, did not leave me with a good impression about this author.

A Pair of Silk Stockings
Truthfully, I have not read this whole book.What I have read, however, is Kate Chopin's "The Awakening" (which was wonderful) and the title story for this book--"A Pair of Silk Stockings."In myopinion, both were wonderful and everyone should read Chopin. "...Silk Stockings" is a wonderful, meaningful piece although Isuppose that some people just cannot see the true depth of such a story.

Mish-Mash
Of course I love all of Kate Chopin's work, but this collection overlaps with both Bayou Folk and A Night in Acadie (which one can purchase from Penguin Classics in a complete volume).The only real treasure in thisbook is a story that may be tricky to find: The Dream of an Hour.Thetitle story is no great shakes.I would recommend buying her morecomprehensive collections of stories and using this booklet (9 stories) asa filler for a few missing works.At 80 cents, who can loose? ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
Get your "A" in gear!

They're today's most popular study guides-with everything you need to succeed in school. Written by Harvard students for students, since its inception SparkNotes™ has developed a loyal community of dedicated users and become a major education brand. Consumer demand has been so strong that the guides have expanded to over 150 titles.SparkNotes'™ motto is Smarter, Better, Faster because:

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And with everything covered--context; plot overview; character lists; themes, motifs, and symbols; summary and analysis, key facts; study questions and essay topics; and reviews and resources--you don't have to go anywhere else!



... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Another strong woman...
Kate Chopin was an incredible woman who wrote from her heart. Regardless of the pain that she dealt with through her life, she still managed to create beautiful novels. As a rebel of her time, Chopin wrote about issues that shouldn't have been brought to the table. In fact, her novel, The Awakening, was banned in schools in the U.S. for quite some time. I'm obviously already a fan of Chopin, so reading this book was incredibly interesting. I recommend this book for anyone who wants to read about someone who had passion for life and writing. I also recommend any of her books (a good starter would be The Awakening), I guarantee that you won't be disappointed! And if you are disappointed, then maybe you need to rethink what you are looking for... ... Read more

Product Description
New, Unabridged on 2 Cd’s; Shrinkwrapped. Narrated by Jacqueline Kinlow.

Nine of the best of Chopin's stories of Louisiana, including Desiree's Baby and Love on the Bon-Dieu. ... Read more