The Awakening and Selected Stories

<b>Introduction by Kaye Gibbons</b><br> <b>Edited and with notes by Nina Baym</b><br> <b>Commentary by Elizabeth Blackwell Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Charlotte Perkins Gilman and from <i>The Picayune&#146;s Creole Cook Book</i></b><br> <b><i>&#160;</i></b><br> <i>The Awakening </i>shocked turn-of-the-century readers with its forthright treatment of sex and suicide. Departing from literary convention Kate Chopin failed to condemn her heroine&#146;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 life are the themes of this now-classic novel. As Kaye Gibbons points out in her Introduction Chopin &#147;was writing American realism before most Americans could bear to hear that they were living it.&#148; This edition includes selected stories from Chopin&#146;s <i>Bayou Folk </i>and <i>A Night in Acadie</i>.<br> &#160;<br> <b>Includes a Modern Library Reading Group Guide</b>