Life of Ma Parker: A sympathetic yet real look at the struggles of the lower class

Katherine Mansfield was born on 14th October 1888 into a prominent family in Wellington, New Zealand, the third of five children.

A gifted Celloist, at one point she thought she might take it up professionally at the same time her early writing was published in school magazines.

At 19 Katherine left for home for England, there she met the modernist writers D H Lawrence and Virginia Woolf with whom she became close friends.

She travelled around Europe before returning to New Zealand in 1906 and...