“The Daughters of the Late Colonel”
Freedom feels unfamiliar
StorylineAfter the death of their domineering father, Josephine and Constantia Pinner face the unfamiliar business of making their own decisions. As they negotiate visitors, possessions and memories, Mansfield turns domestic hesitations into a tender, sharply comic portrait of two lives shaped by duty.
“It had been a rule for years never to disturb father in the morning, whatever happened.”
THE SHORT SHOT EDITION
Father has left. His rules haven’t.
- Short Shot editionShort story
- GenreLiterary modernism
- Estimated reading time28–35 minutesStory · extras excluded
Short Shot edition on Amazon · opens in a new tab
At a glance
- Genre
- Literary modernism
- Mood
- Tender dark comedy
- First published
- 1921
- Author’s country
- New Zealand
Read the opening · excerpt
The week after was one of the busiest weeks of their lives. Even when they went to bed it was only their bodies that lay down and rested; their minds went on, thinking things out, talking things over, wondering, deciding, trying to remember where....
Constantia lay like a statue, her hands by her sides, her feet just overlapping each other, the sheet up to her chin. She stared at the ceiling.
“Do you think father would mind if we gave his top-hat to the porter?”
“The porter?” snapped Josephine. “Why ever the porter? What a very extraordinary idea!”
THE EDITOR’S TAKE
A LITTLE ROOM TO BREATHE
Why “The Daughters of the Late Colonel”?
- Two sisters, one formidable shadow—and a household where even the simplest decision becomes a drama.
- Mansfield finds dark comedy in nervous conversations, small rituals and the things nobody quite says.
- A beautifully observed story about how hard freedom can feel when obedience has become a habit.
BEHIND THE STORY
About the author
Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923) catches the feelings that slip beneath polite conversation. Her collections include Bliss and The Garden Party and Other Stories. She makes a beautifully arranged afternoon feel anything but settled.
Portrait credit
AI-generated wood-engraving interpretation after the historical portrait from Archives New Zealand, ABKH W4437 NF 316, via Wikimedia Commons. The illustration and resized image are shared under CC BY-SA 2.0. Download the portrait. This license applies to the portrait, not the whole site.
More by Katherine Mansfield in our collection
A question to savor
When rules have shaped a whole life, what does choosing for yourself begin to look like?
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