Publisher Description
In Women's Short Stories we bring you a selection of favorite works by our greatest female writers.
Volume 4 includes the classics: "A Pair of Silk Stockings" by Kate Chopin, in which a poor young mother has the taste of the good life for a day; "Here We Are" by Dorothy Parker, in which we look in on a tense scene between newlyweds traveling to New York City for their honeymoon; and "Right at Last" by Elizabeth Gaskell, a story of a strong-minded heroine who stands her moral ground.
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About the Authors
Kate Chopin (1851–1901) was born Katherine O’Flaherty in St. Louis in 1851. She was a popular social belle, admired for her wit and beauty. In 1871 she married Oscar Chopin and lived in Louisiana until his sudden death in 1882. Chopin began writing about the Creole and Cajun people in the South, gaining acclaim for her finely crafted short stories. Upon publication in 1899, her now-classic novel The Awakening was widely condemned for its controversial themes, and Chopin was devastated by its harsh critical reception. She died in 1904, denied in her lifetime the recognition she desperately wanted and richly deserved.
Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) is a literary legend famed for her poetry, short stories, criticism, screenplays, and dramas. She was a founding writer of the New Yorker and also wrote for Vogue, Vanity Fair, and Esquire. A key member of the New York literary circle, the Algonquin Round Table, she was widely known as the wittiest woman in America. Not so well known are her political beliefs: she helped unionize Hollywood screenwriters, joined the Communist Party, and worked on behalf of various left-wing causes. In the 1950s, she was blacklisted in Hollywood. Her estate was bequeathed to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She is buried in Baltimore, at the headquarters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which became her literary executor following Dr. King’s assassination. Today, four decades after her death, Dorothy Parker remains one of the most quoted writers in the world.
Elizabeth Gaskell (1810–1865) was an English novelist and short-story writer born in London and raised in Knutsford, Cheshire, which became the model for village settings in her novels. In 1832 she married William Gaskell, a Unitarian minister. Her first novel, Mary Barton, published in 1848, was immensely popular and brought her to the attention of Charles Dickens, who solicited her work for his periodical, Household Words, for which she wrote the series subsequently reprinted as Cranford.
About the Narrators
Richard Mitchley is an actor and narrator who has appeared in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet…, The Black Adder, and Doctor Who.
Ghizela Rowe has worked in broadcast
television for thirty years on a broad range of programming. Her specialization
is in music. She helps run the Copyright Group, an extensive collection of
master recording rights, and has lent her voice to many audiobooks, including The Poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
Elizabeth Gaskell: The Short Stories, and The Romantics: An Introduction.