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After the death of her Irish immigrant father when she was four, Kate Chopin was raised by her French Creole mother. She was educated in Catholic schools and read widely in French literature. When she was nineteen, she married Oscar Chopin, a wealthy New Orleans cotton broker. In 1888, Oscar Chopin died, having lost his fortune a few years earlier. Thus, at the age of 37, Kate Chopin was left with six children and no money with which to raise them. She moved the family to St. Louis, where she began to write stories depicting the Creole life she knew so well. Many of the stories were published and eventually collected in two anthologies, Bayou Folk (1894) and A Night in Arcadie (1899). When she published her novel The Awakening (1899), her public judged it immoral, and subsequently her work lost favor with readers. "The Storm," which remained unpublished in Chopin's lifetime, was written after The Awakening and also deals with a controversial theme.

Major works by Chopin

At Fault (1890)
Bayou Folk (1894)
A Night in Acadie (1897)
The Awakening (1899)

Chopin and the Web

This is a good starting point: the "Kate Chopin: A Re-Awakening" homepage from Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

This page from Perspectives in American Literature has photos, bibliographies, a brief summary of The Awakening, and some study questions.

Would you like to read more by this author? Here's a collection of Chopin's works in etext from the University of Maryland.