Feuille d'Album is a 1917 short story by Katherine Mansfield. It was first published in the New Age on 20 September 1917, under the title of An Album Leaf. A revised version later appeared in Bliss and Other Stories.
Contents
Plot summary
Ian French, a painter, cannot seem to fall in love with any woman who throws herself to him. The community speculates about his life and the reader learns that he is an introvert. One evening, he spots a neighbour whom he feels attracted to as she is about his age and he feels the need to pursue her. He then follows her while she is out shopping on a Thursday, and he has an egg in his hand, that she had dropped on her way home. As an attempt to talk to her, he charmingly gives her the egg.
Characters in Feuille d'Album
Major themes
Literary significance
The text is written in the modernist mode, without a set structure, and with many shifts in the narrative.