Katherine Mansfield Interacts with Google

Google commemorated the birthday of writer Katherine Mansfield on 14 October with an interactive doodle on its homepage, marking the 125th anniversary of the New Zealander’s death in Fontainebleau, France, aged 34.

The first Google Doodle was in honour of the Burning Man Festival of 1998. The doodle was designed by founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to notify users of their absence in case the servers crashed.

Google Doodles have been produced for the birthdays of several noted artists and scientists, including Andy Warhol and Albert Einstein among others.

Mansfield is an NZEDGE legend: “Mansfield revolutionised the 20th Century English short story. Her brief life was also a lesson in casting off convention. Famously, Mansfield remarked ‘risk, risk everything’. In the words of one of her biographers, ‘It was largely through her adventurous spirit, her eagerness to grasp at experience and to succeed in her work, that she became ensnared in disaster … If she was never a saint, she was certainly a martyr, and a heroine in her recklessness, her dedication and her courage.’”

Mansfield was born in Wellington in 1888.