The text presented in this Norton Critical Edition of Kate Chopin's The Awakening is that of the first edition, published by Herbert S. Stone in 1899. Meeting initially with widespread hostile criticism, the novel went out of print for half a century in this country. Now widely read, especially in college courses, this novel has established itself as one of a few classic novels written by a woman at the turn of the century. The text has been thoroughly and usefully annotated by the editor, the notes including translations of French phrases and explanations of references to local places and customs and the lore of New Orleans, the Bayou region, and its Creole culture.

The Contexts section offers a generous sampling of contemporary thought and writing, including Mary Shafter on Creole Women and Wilbur Fisk Tillet on southern womanhood. Dorothy Dix, America's first advice columnist, is represented by articles dealing with the American wife, summer flirtations, and suicide. The section concludes with a selection from Women and Economics, by Charlotte Perkins Stetson (Gilman), and Thorstein Veblen's discussion of the servant-wife.

The Criticism section presents numerous contemporary reactions and reviews, as wll as a wide-ranging selection of essays by modern critics, including Percival Pollard, George Arms, Daniel S. Rankin, Larzer Ziff, Marie Fletcher, Kenneth Eble, Per Seyersted, George M. Spangler, John R. May, Lewis Leary, Jules Chametzky, Donald A. Ringe, Cynthia Griffin Wolff, Suzanne Wolkenfeld, and Margaret Culley.
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