Born Catherine O'Flaherty on July 12, 1850, in St. Louis, Missouri, Kate Chopin was the daughter of an immigrant Irishman, Thomas O'Flaherty and a French-American mother, Eliza Faris. One of three children born to this union (Thomas' second, his first having produced her brother George), Kate was their youngest child and by all accounts, a happy one. However, in 1855 Thomas O'Flaherty died suddenly, and so, at five years old, Kate was forced to reshape her concept of herself and her world, which at that time largely revolved around the father figure as the center of the household. After her father's death, Kate's family included her widowed mother, her widowed grandmother, and her widowed great-grandmother. In June, 1889, Kate wrote Wiser Than a God and by the end of 1889 had written three more short stories as well as begun At Fault, her first novel, which was published in 1890. By 1894 she published Bayou Folk, a collection of short stories written in the local-color tradition and containing all but four short stories that had been previously published in popular journals. This would earn her the highest critical praise she would receive in her lifetime. Most of the stories contained in Bayou Folk are somewhat superficial and sentimental. However, even in these one can find Chopin's characters struggling for a sense of self and purpose, with such themes as self-reliant women as protagonists, post Civil War racism, male/female relationships and what would eventually become known as male chauvinism. Also, in these early characters one sees the prototype for her most famous character to come, Edna Pontellier of The Awakening

PBS, "Kate Chopin: A Re-Awakening"

Empirezine.com, "Ahead of Her Time: Kate Chopin."

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries, Barbara C. Ewell, "Kate Chopin"

Loyola University, Barbara Ewell, ed. "Kate Chopin: A Literary Journey"

The Literary Traveler, Linda McGovern, "Footprints in Cloutierville"