Kate Chopin

Unsatisfied with the expectations of Creole society and unhappy with her family life, Edna Pontellier begins to fall in love with the dapper Robert Lebrun. Lebrun's flirtations, along with the lifestyle of renowned musician Mademoiselle Reisz, rejuvenates Edna's sense of freedom and independence...

Life has the capacity of great moments and attainment, of lives well lived, fulfilling for ourselves and for those we touch. But for others life is arduous. There is no spark to ignite the curiosity, to explore and achieve a stability and a growth to their lives....

Edna Pontellier is married, twenty-eight, and at a crossroads in her life. She is passionate and artistic but has no one who understands her deep yearnings. She jumps at the chance to spend a summer away from her husband and the heat of New Orleans at a small coastal retreat. Enveloped by a...

Kate Chopin’s novel, a landmark work of early feminism, is seen as a precursor to the works of American novelists such as William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway.....

Katherine O'Flaherty was born on the 8th February 1850 in St Louis, Missouri to parents of French and Irish descent. Kate married Oscar Chopin in 1870 and the couple moved to New Orleans, and later to the rural setting of Cloutierville, Louisiana to raise their 6 children.

The inevitable is understood by each and every one of us who faces the final calling. So too are the effects on those left behind. The memories are there but the empty space, the void can never be refilled. It remains a dark, unreliable pit of loneliness....

In A Pair of Silk Stockings, Mrs. Sommers, a once wealthy woman who has fallen on hard times comes into possession of a small fortune of $15. Planning to spend the money on clothing for her children, she becomes sidetracked at a shop counter, entranced by the smoothness of a pair of silk...

The American literary tradition has, in a far shorter span of time than others throughout history, achieved a glowing and glittering reputation. From its transatlantic roots it has absorbed the sons and daughters of other cultures, other lands and made them part of her own....

The main character in this short story had never had children so she had no idea what it was like to live with or without them. That is until she is pressed into service to care for a neighbor's children....

This powerful story concerns a wife who learns that her overbearing husband has been killed....

In Désirée’s Baby, the adopted daughter of a wealthy prewar French Creole couple is courted by the son of another wealthy, respected French Creole family. After they marry, their child is born with dark skin and believed to have African ancestry, a problem for a prewar white family. Accused...

Kate Chopin is a widely considered a forerunner to the feminist authors of the twentieth century. Focusing on themes of race and gender, her short stories largely center on life in rural Louisiana. In "A Pair of Silk Stockings," a young woman unexpected finds herself with fifteen dollars...

First published in 1899, this revolutionary novel so disturbed critics and the public that it was banished for decades afterward. Now widely read and admired, The Awakening has been hailed as an early vision of woman's emancipation. Rooted in the romantic tradition of Melville and Dickinson, it...

In this series we explore the many facets of love through literary talents that span both time and country.

Depois da Guerra Civil Americana, a senhora Pelagie sonha com a reconstrução da sua mansão destruída. O sonho toma conta de todo o seu dia a dia e da sua vida até que uma mudança se impõe.

“I would give my life for my children, but I wouldn’t give myself.” So said Edna Pontellier to her friend one summer as they sat beside the sea....

As the Century draws to a close it shows no sign of its literary talents diminishing. Authors stride into stories with a confidence and knowledge that now speak of a gilded age.

Once again on the American side of the Atlantic talent pours forth from the pens of these literary women. Even to choose a mere ten seems to be a choice too difficult to make.

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. They can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere.

‘The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude.’ Published in 1899 and often regarded as Kate Chopin’s masterpiece, The Awakening is a raw and unflinching account of one woman’s struggle between the...