The Awakening, and Selected Short Stories

In 1899, Kate Chopin wrote a novel so dangerous it nearly destroyed her reputation. A century later, it stands as the founding text of American feminist literature. Edna Pontellier arrives at Grand Isle for a summer with her husband and children, expecting nothing more than the dull rhythm of married life. What she finds instead is herself, the startling, terrifying discovery that she is a person with desires, ambitions, and a hunger for freedom that no one ever told her she was allowed to feel. Robert Lebrun is the catalyst, but the awakening is entirely her own. Chopin renders a woman's emergence from societal coma with prose so lush and precise it feels almost transgressive: Edna's resistance, her sensuality, her slow recognition that compliance will cost her everything. The eleven short stories collected here demonstrate Chopin's remarkable range, from the gothic terrors of "Desiree's Baby" to the uncontainable desire of "The Storm." This is a book about the most dangerous thing a woman can do: want more.