The Garden Party and Other Stories

by Katherine Mansfield, Lorna Sage (Introduction)

Overview

Fifteen exquisite tales from one of the world'd greatest writers of the short story

Innovative, startlingly perceptive and aglow with colour, these stories were written towards the end of Katherine Mansfield's tragically short life. Many are set in the author's native New Zealand, others in England and the French Riviera. All are revelations of the unspoken, half-understood emotions that make up everyday experience - from the blackly comic 'The Daughters of the Late Colonel', and the short, sharp sketch 'Miss Brill', in which a lonely woman's precarious sense of self is brutally destroyed, to the vivid impressionistic evocation of family life in 'At the Bay'. 'All that I write,' Mansfield said, 'all that I am - is on the borders of the sea. It is a kind of playing.'

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780141937182
Publisher:	Penguin UK
Publication date:	03/29/2007
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Katherine Mansfield (Author)
Born in New Zealand in 1888, Katherine Mansfield Beauchamp was primarily a writer of short stories. She published Prelude and The Garden Party and Other Stories before her premature death from TB in 1923. Something Childish and her journal and letters were published posthumously.

What People are Saying About This

Lorna Sage

One of the great modernist writers of displacement, restlessness, mobility, impermanence.

Editorial Reviews

The Garden Party is the last volume of short stories published before this New Zealand author's untimely death from tuberculosis at age 35. These 15 stories are typical Mansfield slice-of-life glimpses into human relationships: parent-child, wife-husband, friend-friend, all recognizable, all vivid in their gentleness and sensitivity. Marguerite Gavin reads in a light, American-accented, rather uninspired way, but her voices are marvelous; presenting British accents of every description from cockney to Queen, with clear delineation between characters male and female, is a skill especially important in these character-driven tales. Her sound effects (birdcalls, running water, etc.) are perfect, and she sings in such a lovely clear soprano that the listener wishes there were more songs in the stories. The short story format is often a favorite with listeners who hesitate to commit to hours and hours of the same work. Mansfield belongs in all fiction collections; highly recommended.--Harriet Edwards, East Meadow P.L., NY Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

An illustrated collection published to mark the centenary of Mansfield's birth. The paintings (in color) are largely by New Zealand artists who were her contemporaries. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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