Professor Janet Beer is Vice Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University.

• Chronology; Introduction Janet Beer; 1. What we do and don't know about Kate Chopin's life Emily Toth; 2. At Fault: a reappraisal of Kate Chopin's other novel Donna Campbell; 3. Kate Chopin and the subject of childhood Pamela Knights; 4. 'Race' and ethnicity in Kate Chopin's fiction Susan Castillo; 5. Kate Chopin on fashion in a Darwinian world Katherine Joslin; 6. The Awakening and New Woman fiction Ann Heilmann; 7. Reading Kate Chopin through contemporary French feminist theory Michael Worton; 8. The Awakening as literary innovation: Chopin, Maupassant and the evolution of genre Elizabeth Nolan; 9. Kate Chopin, choice and modernism Avril Horner; 10. Kate Chopin and post-colonial New Orleans Helen Taylor; 11. The Awakening: the first hundred years Bernard Koloski; Guide to further reading; Index.

'This is a rich and comprehensive volume. The ten essays include helpful overviews, like those of veteran Chopin scholars Bernard Koloski and Emily Toth and Janet Beer's lively prologue. While these essays track mostly familiar territory, they also provide nuanced critical introductions to the many new readers who continue to be charmed by Chopin's fictions. But these essays also open new terrain in Chopin studies … good stories, literary craft, and social consciousness - ought to guarantee Kate Chopin at least another century or two of readers and critics. And Janet Beer's fine collection of essays indicates just how interesting the reading will continue to be.' American Studies