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The Complete Works of Katherine Mansfield: Bliss, The Garden Party, The Dove's Nest, Something Childish, In a German Pension
This carefully edited collection has been designed and formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. Table of Short Story Collections Bliss, and Other Stories The Garden Party, and Other Stories The Doves' Nest, and Other Stories Something Childish, and Other Stories In a German Pension, and Other Stories The Aloe Unfinished Stories Poems 1909- 1910 1911-1913 Poems at the Villa 1916 1917-1919 Child 1907 Letters Journal Essays & Book Reviews The Life of Katherine Mansfield by Ruth E. Mantz & J. Middleton Murry Kathleen Mansfield Murry (1888–1923) was a prominent New Zealand modernist short story writer who was born and brought up in colonial New Zealand and wrote under the pen name of Katherine Mansfield. At 19, Mansfield left New Zealand and settled in the United Kingdom, where she became a friend of modernist writers such as D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf. Like Woolf, Mansfield was also interested in the feelings and thoughts of her characters rather than plot development and hence her short stories show the complexities of a character's interior life in all its various shades.
2982 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2009
About the author
Katherine Mansfield
1,055 books1,268 followersKathleen Mansfield Murry (née Beauchamp) was a prominent New Zealand modernist writer of short fiction who wrote under the pen name of Katherine Mansfield.
Katherine Mansfield is widely considered one of the best short story writers of her period. A number of her works, including "Miss Brill", "Prelude", "The Garden Party", "The Doll's House", and later works such as "The Fly", are frequently collected in short story anthologies. Mansfield also proved ahead of her time in her adoration of Russian playwright and short story writer Anton Chekhov, and incorporated some of his themes and techniques into her writing.
Katherine Mansfield was part of a "new dawn" in English literature with T.S. Eliot, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. She was associated with the brilliant group of writers who made the London of the period the centre of the literary world.
Nevertheless, Mansfield was a New Zealand writer - she could not have written as she did had she not gone to live in England and France, but she could not have done her best work if she had not had firm roots in her native land. She used her memories in her writing from the beginning, people, the places, even the colloquial speech of the country form the fabric of much of her best work.
Mansfield's stories were the first of significance in English to be written without a conventional plot. Supplanting the strictly structured plots of her predecessors in the genre (Edgar Allan Poe, Rudyard Kipling, H. G. Wells), Mansfield concentrated on one moment, a crisis or a turning point, rather than on a sequence of events. The plot is secondary to mood and characters. The stories are innovative in many other ways. They feature simple things - a doll's house or a charwoman. Her imagery, frequently from nature, flowers, wind and colours, set the scene with which readers can identify easily.
Themes too are universal: human isolation, the questioning of traditional roles of men and women in society, the conflict between love and disillusionment, idealism and reality, beauty and ugliness, joy and suffering, and the inevitability of these paradoxes. Oblique narration (influenced by Chekhov but certainly developed by Mansfield) includes the use of symbolism - the doll's house lamp, the fly, the pear tree - hinting at the hidden layers of meaning. Suggestion and implication replace direct detail.
Katherine Mansfield is widely considered one of the best short story writers of her period. A number of her works, including "Miss Brill", "Prelude", "The Garden Party", "The Doll's House", and later works such as "The Fly", are frequently collected in short story anthologies. Mansfield also proved ahead of her time in her adoration of Russian playwright and short story writer Anton Chekhov, and incorporated some of his themes and techniques into her writing.
Katherine Mansfield was part of a "new dawn" in English literature with T.S. Eliot, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. She was associated with the brilliant group of writers who made the London of the period the centre of the literary world.
Nevertheless, Mansfield was a New Zealand writer - she could not have written as she did had she not gone to live in England and France, but she could not have done her best work if she had not had firm roots in her native land. She used her memories in her writing from the beginning, people, the places, even the colloquial speech of the country form the fabric of much of her best work.
Mansfield's stories were the first of significance in English to be written without a conventional plot. Supplanting the strictly structured plots of her predecessors in the genre (Edgar Allan Poe, Rudyard Kipling, H. G. Wells), Mansfield concentrated on one moment, a crisis or a turning point, rather than on a sequence of events. The plot is secondary to mood and characters. The stories are innovative in many other ways. They feature simple things - a doll's house or a charwoman. Her imagery, frequently from nature, flowers, wind and colours, set the scene with which readers can identify easily.
Themes too are universal: human isolation, the questioning of traditional roles of men and women in society, the conflict between love and disillusionment, idealism and reality, beauty and ugliness, joy and suffering, and the inevitability of these paradoxes. Oblique narration (influenced by Chekhov but certainly developed by Mansfield) includes the use of symbolism - the doll's house lamp, the fly, the pear tree - hinting at the hidden layers of meaning. Suggestion and implication replace direct detail.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 30, 2022
I will read her stories from here but post my reviews on the title page of the stories. Wonderfully chaptered and no errors as of yet.
July 17, 2020
If you love well-crafted sentences, vivid descriptions, and deeply revealed characters, do check out
Katherine Mansfield: The Complete Works, which is available for about $5 as a Kindle book. It's worth it for the story "At the Bay" alone!
Not too long ago Tobias Wolff turned me on to Katherine Mansfield, mentioning her (in an interview) as an early influence. It's not hard to see her appeal for Wolff or her influence in that both writers place sympathetic characters in decision making situations with moral consequences. The characters do not always make the decisions you hope they will, but you understand them because their essence and thoughts are carefully revealed.
My favorite moments in Mansfield's writing is when the outcasts, the downtrodden, and those in prisons of their own making are given generous, tender attention, such that it stirs the reader's empathy and raises pangs for their well being. These stories include: "The Daughter of the Late Colonel," "Miss Brill," and "The Doll's House."
I also enjoyed the cast of the Burnell family who recur in her stories. Of those, I highly recommend "At the Bay" and "The Doll's House." "At the Bay," perhaps my favorite of all her stories, does a masterful job of revealing the interior lives of each of the characters, covering all the stages of life from childhood to elderly. I felt deeply for each person, and the stakes for their concerns and longings seemed high. By the way,"Prelude," the first Burnell family story, is useful for background and development, but it is more concerned with incidents rather than essence.
Katherine Mansfield: The Complete Works, which is available for about $5 as a Kindle book. It's worth it for the story "At the Bay" alone!
Not too long ago Tobias Wolff turned me on to Katherine Mansfield, mentioning her (in an interview) as an early influence. It's not hard to see her appeal for Wolff or her influence in that both writers place sympathetic characters in decision making situations with moral consequences. The characters do not always make the decisions you hope they will, but you understand them because their essence and thoughts are carefully revealed.
My favorite moments in Mansfield's writing is when the outcasts, the downtrodden, and those in prisons of their own making are given generous, tender attention, such that it stirs the reader's empathy and raises pangs for their well being. These stories include: "The Daughter of the Late Colonel," "Miss Brill," and "The Doll's House."
I also enjoyed the cast of the Burnell family who recur in her stories. Of those, I highly recommend "At the Bay" and "The Doll's House." "At the Bay," perhaps my favorite of all her stories, does a masterful job of revealing the interior lives of each of the characters, covering all the stages of life from childhood to elderly. I felt deeply for each person, and the stakes for their concerns and longings seemed high. By the way,"Prelude," the first Burnell family story, is useful for background and development, but it is more concerned with incidents rather than essence.
January 6, 2015
Marie's Read
This is short story writing at its best. I read it with delight and absolute awe at the way Me. Mansfield could describe things: flowers, landscapes, houses in a way that makes them come to life in a way that just blew my mind!
But her true talent and real gift was knowing people. Getting into their heads and letting us go there too. We felt what they felt, we see the world as they do, it's an amazing emotional journey.
Some of her short stories are completely fictional, some are autobiographical (these are not always so apparent), and some of her stories feature characters from earlier stories - I call these serial shorts (I'm sure there's a fancy name for them, afraid I don't know it).
She writes from many perspectives: the girlfriend, the husband, the abused child, the sister, the grandmother, the wife, the single woman, the child playing - her talent is unlimited and had she lived longer, she probably would have been one of the great novelist's of the 20th century.
But in the short time she was here, she wrote masterpieces (and some beautiful poetry included at the end). Anyone who purports to enjoy great writing would be a fool to miss this.
This is short story writing at its best. I read it with delight and absolute awe at the way Me. Mansfield could describe things: flowers, landscapes, houses in a way that makes them come to life in a way that just blew my mind!
But her true talent and real gift was knowing people. Getting into their heads and letting us go there too. We felt what they felt, we see the world as they do, it's an amazing emotional journey.
Some of her short stories are completely fictional, some are autobiographical (these are not always so apparent), and some of her stories feature characters from earlier stories - I call these serial shorts (I'm sure there's a fancy name for them, afraid I don't know it).
She writes from many perspectives: the girlfriend, the husband, the abused child, the sister, the grandmother, the wife, the single woman, the child playing - her talent is unlimited and had she lived longer, she probably would have been one of the great novelist's of the 20th century.
But in the short time she was here, she wrote masterpieces (and some beautiful poetry included at the end). Anyone who purports to enjoy great writing would be a fool to miss this.
July 9, 2010
Auteur chouchou.
Elle a un vrai talent pour les nouvelles; À ma connaissance, aucun roman. Morte trop jeune.
Elle a un vrai talent pour les nouvelles; À ma connaissance, aucun roman. Morte trop jeune.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews