Kate Chopin was one of the most individual and adventurous of nineteenth-century American
writers whose fiction explored new and often starting 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. From her first stories Chopin was interested in independent characters who
challenged convention. This selection freshly edited from 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'.
