Katherine Mansfield died at Fontainebleau on January 9th 1923, at the age of thirty-four. The title of this volume, “The Doves’ Nest and Other Stories,” is the title which Katherine Mansfield intended to give it. Whether the stories which compose it are those which she would finally have included in it, I cannot say. Her standard of self-criticism was continually changing, and changing always in the direction of a greater rigour. In writings which I thought perfect she, with her keener insight, discerned unworthy elements. Now that I am forced to depend upon my own sole judgment, it has seemed to me that there is not a scrap of her writing—not even the tiniest fragment—during this final period which does not bear the visible impress of her exquisite individuality and her creative power.

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