From Library Journal
This gorgeous edition of Chopin's 1899 classic features period photos of the novel's New Orleans location and a durable plastic dust jacket.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Erica Bauermeister
Edna Pontellier, the heroine of The Awakening, shocked readers in 1899 and the scandal created by the book haunted Kate Chopin for the rest of her life. The Awakening begins at a crisis point in twenty-eight year-old Edna Pontellier's life. Edna is a passionate and artistic woman who finds few acceptable outlets for her desires in her role as wife and mother of two sons living in conventional Creole society. Unlike the married women around her, whose sensuality seems to flow naturally into maternity, Edna finds herself wanting her own emotional and sexual identity. During one summer while her husband is out of town, her frustrations find an outlet in an affair with a younger man. Energized and filled with a desire to define her own life, she sends her children to the country and removes herself to a small house of her own: "Every step she took toward relieving herself from obligations added to her strength and expansion as an individual. She began to look with her own eyes; to see and apprehend the deeper undercurrents of life. No longer was she content to 'feed upon the opinion' when her own soul had invited her." Her triumph is short-lived, however, destroyed by a society that has no place for a self-determined, unattached woman. Her story is a tragedy and one of many clarion calls in its day to examine the institution of marriage and woman's opportunities in an oppressive world. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14.

ANNOTATION

An American classic of sexual expression that paved the way for the modern novel, The Awakening is both a remarkable novel in its own right and a startling reminder of how far women in this century have come. The story of a married woman who pursues love outside a stuffy, middle-class marriage, the novel portrays the mind of a woman seeking fulfillment of her essential nature.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Novelist and short story writer Kate Chopin (1851-1904) was the first American woman to deal with women's roles as wives and mothers. The Awakening (1899), her most famous novel, concerns a woman, dissatisfied with her indifferent husband, who gives in to her desire for other men and commits adultery. This is a searing depiction of the religious and social pressures brought to bear on women who transgress restrictive Victorian codes of behavior.

SYNOPSIS

Though published in 1899, The Awakening warrants inclusion in this list for the distinctly 20th-century sensibility with which it depicts Edna Pontellier's radical march toward sexual and emotional freedom. Kate Chopin (1851-1904) was born and raised in St. Louis, moving to New Orleans after her marriage to Oscar Chopin. She began writing after her husband's death, publishing two collections of short fiction set among the Creoles and Cajuns of southern Louisiana; based on these stories, Chopin was labeled a "local colorist." The Awakening produced much hostile criticism because of its sympathetic portrait of a woman who chooses to reject marriage and motherhood, and the novel was banned by St. Louis libraries. Chopin's reputation has been salvaged by feminist critics, however, who see in the novel an early portrait of a woman who chooses a final independence over even a pleasantly constrained life.

FROM THE CRITICS

Times

Kate Chopin is a pioneer in the treatment of sexuality in American literature… She does not speak only to women,but she speaks most powerfully about them.

Publishers Weekly