The Awakening and Selected Stories - Paperback

by Kate Chopin (Author), Nina Baym (Editor), Kaye Gibbons (Introduction by)

Introduction by Kaye Gibbons
Edited and with notes by Nina Baym
Commentary by Elizabeth Blackwell, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and from The Picayune's Creole Cook Book

The Awakening shocked turn-of-the-century readers with its forthright treatment of sex and suicide. Departing from literary convention, Kate Chopin failed to condemn her heroine's desire for an affair with the son of a Louisiana resort owner whom she meets on vacation. The power of sensuality, the delusion of ecstatic love, and the solitude that accompanies the trappings of middle- and upper-class life are the themes of this now-classic novel. As Kaye Gibbons points out in her Introduction, Chopin "was writing American realism before most Americans could bear to hear that they were living it." This edition includes selected stories from Chopin's Bayou Folk and A Night in Acadie.

Front Jacket

The Awakening shocked turn-of-the-century readers with its forthright treatment of sex and suicide. Departing from literary convention, Kate Chopin failed to condemn her heroine's desire for an affair with the son of a Louisiana resort owner, whom she meets on vacation. The power of sensuality, the delusion of ecstatic love, and the solitude that accompanies the trappings of middle- and upper-class life are the themes of this now-classic novel. As Kaye Gibbons points out in her Introduction, Chopin "was writing American realism before most Americans could bear to hear that they were living it."
This Modern Library Paperback Classics edition includes selected stories from Chopin's Bayou Folk and A Night in Acadie.

Author Biography

Kaye Gibbons is the author of Ellen Foster, A Virtuous Woman, and On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon, among other books.