Edinburgh University Press Circulating Genius: John Middleton Murry, Katherine Mansfield and D. H. Lawrence

The relationship between the personal lives of writers and the works they produce is at the heart of this intriguing new study. In particular, it reconsiders the place of John Middleton Murry (1889-1957) in the development of literary modernism in Britain. Drawing on Murry's unpublished journals and long-forgotten novels, Circulating Genius examines his significance as a 'circulator' of ideas, reputations and critical positions in his roles of editor, literary critic, novelist, friend and lover and complicates the arguments of earlier biographers and critics about his relationships - both personal and professional - with Katherine Mansfield and D. H. Lawrence. Key Features * Rewrites standard assumptions about John Middleton Murry's relationships with Katherine Mansfield and D. H. Lawrence * Provides intertextual readings of fiction by Mansfield, Lawrence and Murry * Considers Murry's controversial role in the dissemination of modernist critical positions * Explores marginalisation and centrality in the creation of the modernist canon Review A significant contribution to modernist studies, Professor Kaplan's timely investigation of the Mansfield-Murry-Lawrence triangle illuminates their previously under-researched creative relationships. Her ability to convey the humour and drama of her subject and her fine scholarship are equally engaging. --Delia da Sousa Correa, Editor, Katherine Mansfield Studies We may have thought that pretty much everything had been garnered about that tangled triangle of D.H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, and Middleton Murry. Not so. After Kaplan, one is looking freshly, more deeply, at how these extraordinary personalities circled and feinted, landed their punches and reconciled. Most surprisingly, she makes her case for restoring Murry to his rightful place in that trio, free from the condescension that has obscured him for generations. Mansfield and Lawrence too emerge in an engagingly new light. What Kaplan does is to present a key moment in British Modernism as a vivid, living, personal exchange. This is good storytelling, as much as fine scholarship. --Vincent O'Sullivan, Victoria University, Wellington, co-editor 'The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield' From the Back Cover 'A significant contribution to modernist studies, Professor Kaplan's timely investigation of the Mansfield-Murry-Lawrence triangle illuminates their previously under-researched creative relationships. Her ability to convey the humour and drama of her subject and her fine scholarship are equally engaging.' Delia da Sousa Correa, Editor, Katherine Mansfield Studies 'We may have thought that pretty much everything had been garnered about that tangled triangle of D.H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, and Middleton Murry. Not so. After Kaplan, one is looking freshly, more deeply, at how these extraordinary personalities circled and feinted, landed their punches and reconciled. Most surprisingly, she makes her case for restoring Murry to his rightful place in that trio, free from the condescension that has obscured him for generations. Mansfield and Lawrence too emerge in a new light. What Kaplan does is to present a key moment in British Modernism as a vivid, living, personal exchange.' Vincent O'Sullivan, Victoria University, Wellington and co-editor of The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield The relationship between the personal lives of writers and the works they produce is at the heart of this intriguing new study. In particular, it reconsiders the place of John Middleton Murry (1889-1957) in the development of literary modernism in Britain. Drawing on Murry's unpublished journals and long-forgotten novels, Circulating Genius examines his significance as a 'circulator' of ideas, reputations and critical positions in his roles of editor, literary critic, novelist, friend and lover and complicates the arguments of earlier biographers and critics about his relationships