Grand tours: Life, love and laundry with Katherine Mansfield in San Remo

Great writers and their adventures in literature

Successful enough to attract the venom of her near contemporary Virginia Woolf ('hard' and 'shallow' was Woolf's verdict on the Mansfield oeuvre), Katherine Mansfield was also the model for Gudrun in D H Lawrence's 'Women in Love'. A New Zealander by birth, she arrived in London in 1908, determined to pursue a literary career. She lived in bohemian poverty, married her first husband George Bowden three weeks after meeting him and then found she was pregnant by another man. Scandalised, her mother installed her wayward daughter in a hotel in Bavaria where she gave birth to a stillborn child. In 1911 she met John Middleton Murry, whom she later married. Together they founded the magazine 'Signature', but Mansfield was by then suffering the symptoms of tuberculosis, the disease that would eventually kill her at the age of 35 in 1923. The following excerpt is taken from 'The Letters and Journals of Katherine Mansfield: A Selection'.

To J M Murry

8 October 1919. It is awfully hot here – as hot as when we came. The insects are simply awful. It's a good thing you left before they got really bad. My leg is so swollen I can only hop today. It is maddening because otherwise I feel so well and strong. Curse these confounded countries!! We have double nets, powder, bathe in verbena, oatmeal, milk, salt water, fresh – but nothing cures them. I think they make the idea of a life in this country absolutely insupportable.

I took the revolver into the garden today and practised with it: how to load and unload and fire. It terrifies me, but I feel "like a new being" now that I really can handle it and understand it. I'll never give it back. They are fascinating things... I almost understand old Brontë père. No more coffee to be had in San Remo. The Government has taken it over, as it has the rice. Dear knows when we shall get any more.

Please send me some books to review. I have none for next week.

12 October 1919. I am sitting in the Bastick chair covered with the Jaeger rug, as although the sun is hot the air is chilly (it's about 4.45 pm) It has been a marvellous day here; I've not moved except for meals. I've been reading and writing, and after lunch I fell asleep from the general shipboard atmosphere. Speaking of ships, such a small jewel of a sailing ship passed the house today, riding close enough in to see the men on board. She had two small sails at the bows, one big one at the stern, and a medium very movable one amidships. The sea is my favourite sea, bright, bright blue, but showing a glint of white as far as one can see. That lift of white seen far away as far as the horizon, moves me terribly. In fact it is the very thing I would like to express in writing: it has the very quality. Here comes another most interesting little steamboat – a very small trader, she looks, painted black and red, with a most ridiculous amount of smoke coming out of the funnel. [A drawing of the steamer.] No. I can't draw her.

I had a nasty jar last night. As there was no water last week, the laundry was put "out" and it came home, exquisite, covered with a white net, carried by the nicest old body who seemed to take the greatest fancy to me, as I did to her. Long conversations. "Comme vous êtes bien ici," etc. And under all this a bill for 36.85!! ... LM did not really "think it very heavy. I don't think you could have expected it to be less, Katie". This with her overall 4.50 and an immense white petticoat 3.75! As to serviettes at 1 lira a piece, "Oh well, my dear, that's not quite sixpence if the exchange is still at 41 for £1. It's about ... let me see ... hardly five pence," and so on. How I should beat her if I were married to her! She thinks I'm made of money. On her last but one journey to San Remo she bought one hecto of coffee for 4.50 from "such a funny little shop" and when I protested she thought "the parcel was small for the money, but the beans felt very tightly packed". Could you believe it? However – let her go. And I shall never shoot her because the body would be so difficult to dispose of. One couldn't make it into a neat parcel or put it under a hearth stone, and she would never burn.

Follow in the footsteps

Flower girl

Katherine Mansfield was one of many English visitors to San Remo on the Riveria di Fiori. Named after its main export, flowers, the area has been popular with the English gentry since the 1860s, when they came to take in the beautiful scenery and recover their health.

Another famous resident of San Remo was the scientist Alfred Nobel, who moved there to improve his health. He continued his experiments by testing explosives on his jetty. The Villa Nobel and laboratory have been converted into a museum due to open next year (0039 184 507 380). The city sends flowers to the Nobel awards ceremony every year.

Getting there

Ryanair (www.ryanair.com) has flights starting from £40 plus taxes. San Remo is 100 miles west of Genoa airport, where you can either hire a car or take a train from the Piazza Principle – a ticket costs around €6 (£4).

Being there

For magnificent sea views, stay at Nyala Suite Hotel, Via Solaro 134; double room from about €145 (£93) per night (0039 184 667 668; www. nyalahotel.com). Italian state tourist board (020-7408 1254; www.enit.it). Liguria's website is www.regione.liguria.it