Kate Chopin, was born Katherine O'Flaherty in St. Louis on Feburary8,1851, of a prosperous Irish-born merchant father and an aristocratic Creole mother. She studied piano, wrote poetry, and read Dickens, Austen, Goethe, de Stael, and the Brontes. Despite her free spirit--she was once nicknamed the "littlest rebel" for yanking down a Union flag--Kate grew to be a leading social belle, admired for her wit and beauty.

In 1870 she married Oscar Chopin. Matrimony did not quell her independence; she dressed unconventionally, took long unchaperoned walks, and smoked cigarettes. In their twelve years of married life, she bore six children, and upon Oscar's sudden death in 1882 she took over the management of the Chopin family plantation in Natchitoches, Louisana. She turned seriously to writing shortly thereafter, publishing stories in Vogue and Atlantic Monthly. She wrote a novel, At Fault(1890), Bayou Folk, a collection of stories(1894), A Night in Acadie, a second collection (1897), and her masterpiece The Awakening(1899), which aroused a national scandal for its "indecency." Banned by libraries, it even prevented her admission into the St. Louis Fine Arts Club--even though Kate Chopin was famous for her literary salon, which attracted distinguished artists and writers from all over the country.

Always sensitive to criticism, Chopin was devastated by the furor that surrounded the publication of The Awakening, and its harsh reception ultimately caused her to stop writing. When she died in 1904, she had been denied the recognition she desperately wanted and richly deserved.

'She wanted to swim far out, where no woman had swum before.' Kate Chopin was one of the most individual and adventurous of nineteenth-century american writers, whose fiction explored new and often startling territory. When her most famous story, The Awakening, was first published in 1899, it stunned readers with its frank portrayal of the inner word of Edna Pontellier, and its daring criticisms of the limits of marriage and motherhood. The subtle beauty of her writing was contrasted with her unwomanly and sordid subject-matter: Edna's rejection of her domestic role, and her passionate quest for spiritual, sexual, and artistic freedom. From her first stories, Chopin was interested in independent characters who challenged convention. This selection, freshly edited form the first printing of each text, enables readers to follow her unfolding career as she experimented with a broad range of writing, from tales for children to decadent fin-de siecle sketches. The Awakening is set alongside thirty-two short stories, illustrating the spectrum of the fiction from her first published stories to her 1898 secret masterpiece, 'The Storm'. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.