The Awakening: A Novel

Description

An exciting repackage of Kate Chopin's classic novel as part of the Modern Library's "Torchbearer" series, featuring a new introduction written by National Book Award finalist, Carmen Maria Machado. The Awakening shocked turn-of-the-century readers and reviewers with its treatment of sex and suicide. In a departure 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 convention are themes of this now-classic novel.

Born and raised in St. Louis, Kate Chopin (1850-1904) moved to Louisiana to marry the son of a cotton grower. A mother of six by the age of twenty-eight and a widow at thirty-two, she turned to writing to support her young family. She is best known today for The Awakening (1899), a portrait of marriage and motherhood so controversial it fell out of print shortly after publication and was not rediscovered until the 1960s.