Kate Chopin - Six of the Best

Six has always been a number we group things around – Six of the best, six of one half a dozen of another, six feet under, six pack, six degrees of separation and a sixth sense are but a few of the ways we use this number.

Such is its popularity that we thought it is also a very good way of challenging and investigating an author’s work to give width, brevity, humour and depth across six of their very best.

In this series we gather together authors whose short stories both rivet the attention and inspire the imagination to visit their gems in a series of six, to roam across an author’s legacy in a few short hours and gain a greater understanding of their writing and, of course, to be lavishly entertained by their ideas, their narrative and their way with words.

These stories can be surprising and sometimes at a tangent to what we expected, but each is fully formed and a marvelous adventure into the world and words of a literary master.

Katherine O'Flaherty was born on the 8th February 1850 in St Louis, Missouri to parents of French and Irish descent.

At age 5, she was sent to the Sacred Heart Academy and, apart from a 2 year period at home when her father died, remained there until graduating in 1868. Whilst there she began writing and became an avid reader of almost anything that crossed her path.

Kate married Oscar Chopin in 1870 and the couple moved to New Orleans, and later to the rural setting of Cloutierville, Louisiana to raise their 6 children.

In 1882 her husband died leaving her in a deep trench of debt. Despite her best efforts to turn the businesses around they were sold, and she moved the family back to St Louis and the financial help of her mother. Sadly, her mother died within the year. Kate, now struggling with depression, pushed herself to write and gained a local reputation as a writer of short stories that captured the local color and vibrancy of her surroundings. By the early 1890’s her short stories were published nationally. With this widespread audience also came negative reviews, controversy, and cries of immorality as themes such as interracial relationships, the rights of women and other burning issues of the day were written about.

Despite the criticism, which unnerved her, she continued to write though in the main her works, around 100 short stories and two novels, were not attributed with any literary worth.

Kate Chopin died from a brain haemorrhage in St Louis Missouri on the 22nd of August 1904. She was 54.

For much of the 20th Century her work was forgotten and out of print. It was only in early 1970’s, with the rise of feminism and the call for a more just society that she was given the status her works had long described and shone a literary light at. She is now safely revered as one of America’s great authors.

© 2025 Six of the Best (Ebook): 9781806373536

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Ebook: 4 november 2025