Author. She was a New Zealand-born English author at the turn of the 20th century. Born Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp to a prominent family in Wellington, she enjoyed writing poems and short stories as a young child. In 1898 her first published works appeared in her school newspaper the "High School Reporter," and later they were published in the magazine for Wellington Girls' High School, which was later known as the Wellington Girls' College. She and her sisters were all well-educated at Queen's College in England and tour parts of Europe. She took the professional name of Kathleen Mansfield as an author. Besides writing, she was an accomplished cellist. She had stories published in such magazines as the Australian magazine "Native Companion" and later in England, "The New Age," "Rhythm," and "The Blue Review." After a trip to Germany, her first collection of short stories, "In a German Pension," an English woman's view of Germans, was published in 1911. Her best-known stories are "The Woman At The Store," "How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped," "Millie," "Something Childish But Very Natural," "The Little Governess," "Pictures," "Fueille d'Album," "A Dill Pickle," "Prelude," "An Indiscreet Journey," "Bliss," "Mrs. Brill," "Psychology," "Sun and Moon," "The Wind Blows," "The Fly," "The Garden Party," "A Cup of Tea," and "The Doll's House" among many others. In 1907 she left her home for England at age nineteen and became associated with the Bohemian life-style of the Bloomsbury Group of writers and artists. Her fiction, poetry, journals, and letters cover a host of emotional subjects from love and war to complex relationships with sexual overtones, which were a mirror of her scandalous personal life. In 1917, she was diagnosed with tuberculous. Rejecting the idea of a sanatorium on the basis that it would cut her off from writing, she took the only available option and moved abroad during the English winter, settling in the warmer climate of France. She wrote only one story after relocating to France "Something Childish But Very Natural," which was published posthumously. Though she tried many remedies to cure her illness, she succumbed to the disease at the age of 34. She married twice. After a short first marriage, in 1918, she married John Middleton Murry, who was the editor of the avant-garde magazines, "The Blue Review" and "Rhythm." She had no children. In 1973, she was posthumously honored when a film based on her life story, "The Doll's House," which was in honor of her short story of the same name. That same year a six-part BBC television miniseries titled "A Picture of Katherine Mansfield" also aired. Later, four more films about her life were made which include "Leave All Fair" in 1984, "A Portrait of Katherine Mansfield: The Woman and the Writer" in 1987, "The Life and Writings of Katherine Mansfield" in 2006 and "Bliss" in 2010, thus telling her story into the 21st century. Her birthplace in Thorndon has been preserved as the Katherine Mansfield House and Garden. An award, the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship is offered annually to enable a New Zealand writer to work at her former home, the Villa Isola Bella in Menton, France.