The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield by Katherine Mansfield

The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield Reviews

• 
  Lizzy

  I was going through my books, almost forgotten now than I am cheating on them with my kindle (not so often, mind you!), and I found an old favorite that I read many years ago. I enjoyed so much these short-stories, I had to include
  The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield here. When you read her marvelous stories, you travel throughout Europe and meet common or peculiar people. Overall, their reading is a timeless experience. Mansfield had the talent to write apparently simplistic stories that are rich in their meaning. Some of my favorites are: ‘Miss Brill’, ‘Je ne Parle pas Français’ and ‘Marriage a la Mode’. I also loved the collection included in ‘The German Pension’ and The Garden Party.
  
  From Miss Brill:
  

  “She had become really quite expert, she thought, at listening as though she didn't listen, at sitting in other people's lives just for a minute while they talked round her.”

  From The Garden Party and Other Stories:
  

  “You are a Queen. Let mine be the joy of giving you your kingdom.”

  From The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield:
  

  “Regret is an appalling waste of energy, and no one who intends to be a writer can afford to indulge in it.”

  
  Give it a try if you never had the pleasure of readimg one of her stories, great chance you will enjoy it!
  
• 
  Annelies

  I love these short stories so much. Of course, the one is better than another but... they're great. The way she makes a short story feel as a full novel, that's masterful. You get the feeling they are complete, that nothing is missing. They are a full grown entity on theirselves. The way she descripes what happens or often, what things look like, what people hear or see, how things are, what people think... it's so precise and accurate. Her stories are like little jewels wrapped in silk and step for step the jewel gets unfold until she is there in her most precious way of being.
• 
  Fionnuala

  This book lay unread on a shelf for years and years. If I had known what treasures it contained, it most definitely would not have remained unopened.
  I read it during a particularly busy month of my life so I've had no time to write a review. However, I did find time to post update notes as I made my way through the eighty-eight stories, and they provide some idea of the themes and style of the various collections in this volume. I've included them here instead of a review.
  
  The first story in this collection of short story collections is called Prelude and at 50 pages is almost a novella. I thought at first Mansfield should have continued it but then realised it works perfectly as it is. She is good at describing the very imaginative way children experience the world, something most of us tend to forget once we reach adulthood. How has she retained such clear memories?
  
  The next story, Je Ne Parle Pas Français is a curious one showing Mansfield's idiosyncratic approach to narrative. The narrator projects himself as a faithful dog some of the time - we see him wag his tail or slump his ears depending on events. And the crux of the story is slowly and perfectly revealed.
  Blissreminded me of Virginia Woolf's writing, especially in Mrs Dalloway, but with an added brittleness. We see more cracks.
  The Wind Blows and Mr Peacock's Day are like two sides of the same story, the one from the p.o.v. of a girl attending music lessons, the other from the p.o.v. of a singing teacher.
  Psychology and Pictures both reveal how good Mansfield is at endings when she chooses to offer them.
  Sun and Moon offer excellent insight into a child's mind.
  The dilemma of The Man Without a Temperament has stayed with me all day.
  Feuille d'Album: a tiny story but rich, like an egg.
  Dill Pickle: longer and sharper.
  The Little Governess: even longer but oddly, neither sharp nor rich.
  Revelations: it's as if KM's conscience about her privileged existence is bothering her in this one.
  The Escape: sudden shifts in p.o.v. make this one very interesting.
  That story marks the end of the first collection in this volume, Bliss, dated 1920.
  
  The first story in The Garden-Party collection is called At the Bay, and at 40 pages long, and divided into sections, it is almost a novella. To my great surprise and pleasure, it picks up the story of the characters in the almost-novella Prelude that began the first collection. I remember wishing I could read more about those characters and now I have! Both stories are set in Tasmania or New Zealand, I think..
  
  After At the Bay, I skipped forward to the final collection in this volume, In a German Pension because it seems to have been written first and I was curious to read Mansfield's first experiments with short stories. The thirteen very short tales are all set in Germany; almost all are about the clients of a particular boarding house in a spa town where they are all on a cure. The odd characters drift in and out of the stories which are mostly narrated by a young English woman with a very satirical voice.
  
  Back to the The Garden Party collection: the title story examines class differences. Mansfield does this from time to time in her stories, as if her conscience sometimes needles her, though most of the stories in the first collection I read were filled with people who were privileged and had no thought for those who provide their comforts. However, more of the stories in this later collection question inequalities in society.
  
  The Dove's Nest collection is dedicated to Walter de la Mare. Just as in the earlier collections in this volume, it begins with a story about the Burnell family, the characters I'd enjoyed so much in Prelude and At the Bay. K M must have been working up to a novel with this set of characters. If she'd written it, I'd have read it.
  The other five stories in the collection haven't got the same energy.
  
  In A Truthful Adventure from the Something Childish collection, one of the characters is traveling to the city I live in. Nothing unusual about that you might say except that the city is rarely mentioned in literature. I remember that Nabokov also has a character who travels here. When I read his book, I wondered if N had visited the city himself and if he'd scratched his name on a monument like another famous author had done. Can't imagine KM leaving any graffiti though..
  
  From Violet, also in the Something Childish collection, this interesting observation which gives a flavour of the ironic tone of many of Mansfield's young female narrators: There is a very unctuous and irritating proverb to the effect that every cloud has a silver lining. What comfort can it be to one steeped in clouds to ponder over the linings, and what an unpleasant picture-postcard seal it sets upon one's tragedy, turning it into a little ha'penny monstrosity with a moon in the lefthand corner like a vainglorious threepenny bit! Nevertheless, like most unctuous things, it is true..
• 
  Jo (The Book Geek)

  "What I feel for you can’t be conveyed in phrasal combinations; It either screams out loud or stays painfully silent but I promise — it beats words. It beats worlds.”
  
  Katherine Mansfield understands how my heart beats, why it sings for that singular flower in the wasteland or swoons over that lusciously green forest, but most importantly, why I choose her writing over others. The simple fact of the matter is that Mansfield wrote with every fibre of her being, so that I may feel her delight or agony in every sentence. It's a difficult thing to do, letting loose, and she, like a select few authors I've familiarised myself with, are able to do so.
  
  There are many themes within this collection, and I believe there is something to reward everybody, especially those that seek it. There is the subject of marriage and the concern of losing oneself once joined with another, childhood fears, the uneasiness of being alone, and other general life struggles that many go on to experience. She examines each of these themes with ease and I found myself comfortably exploring the extent of Mansfield's mind.
  
  Mansfield wrote with such depth and love for the world around her, and this is reflected in each story. We are taken around the world in a whimsical fashion with all the sights and scents of the spectacular world we live in. I love it when an author is able to capture such detail in their writing.
  
  One of the greatest aspects of Mansfield's writing are her characters. They don't follow a set theme, and they flourish being their own authentic selves, which is a delight to read. The only thing I would mention is the desire to know the characters better than I did, which was unable to happen, because of the shortness of the stories. Mansfield was ahead of her time, and she knew that having the freedom to be oneself was paramount, and I strongly believe that her and I would have broken the mould together.
  
  It is a shame Mansfield passed away as young as she did, as I believe she was just getting started, and her love of the world fascinates me, but honestly, I'm just grateful to be able to savour her stories in the present, to appreciate such a magnificent writer each day of my life.
  
  
  I have added a few of my favourite quotes;
  
  "The pleasure of all reading is doubled when one lives with another who shares the same books."
  
  "The mind I love must have wild places, a tangled orchard where dark damsons drop in the heavy grass, an overgrown little wood, the chance of a snake or two, a pool that nobody's fathomed the depth of, and paths threaded with flowers planted by the mind."
  
  "And I love you-I love you; the humiliation of it-I adore you. Don't-don't, just a minute let me stay here, just a moment in a whole life..."
• 
  Murray

  She is an amazingly good writer, rich and lively and lovely with her English, and her stories are totally accessible, entertaining, and meaningful 💕
• 
  Lusy

  
  
  
  
  When it comes to short stories, how short is short exactly?
  
  I can't tell you the number of time that question prevented me from reading short stories in the past. It's not that it's a bad genre. It's just that I don't want a story to be over so soon!
  
  Then I bumped into one of the short story books by
  Katherine Mansfield titled '
  Bliss & Other Stories' last month. It was a bliss indeed and now I can't stop reading them!
  
  After doing some search, I found my way to this collection of her five short story books in the end of 2021. It was a blessing! I’ll write the reviews of these five books separately.
  
  For this collection, my overall rating is ★★★★½ and here are my ranks as well as ratings for the five books in it:
  1. Bliss and Other Stories with ★★★★☆
  2. The Doves' Nest and Other Stories with ★★★★☆
  3. In a German Pension and Other Stories with ★★★★☆
  4. Something Childish and Other Stories with ★★★★☆
  5. The Garden Party and Other Stories with ★★★½
  
  This collection takes me on some journeys into different lives and I like how nicely written they were! Moreover, some of the stories carry my imagination beyond their endings. I can't help but thinking about 'What If...' versions of them which is pretty fun!
  
  There are some stories that I don't particularly like and some of them are indeed too short but the overall reading experience is still nice. I now understand why Katherine Mansfield is widely considered one of the best short story writers of her period.
  
  At the end, it all boils down to the benefits of reading this kind of book and the biggest one to me is exploring different types of stories without the fear of not being able to finish them. It's always nice to finish what you start and I finished each book in this one with a smile!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Picture credit: unsplash.com
• 
  lucy black

  Last night it was cold and raining with a fierce wind. On the train home all I could think about was soup. I got to the front door before realising I didn't have my keys. Luckily my (slightly unorganised) brother had left a box of books in my garage. I sat down on the broken rocking chair in the damp, cobwebby garage and lost myself in these sad stories. I really like her writing and found it totally fitting. Really good winter reading.
• 
  Lucrezia

  Sono sempre stata curiosa a riguardo dell' unico essere di cui Virginia Woolf fosse invidiosa.
  E così eccomi qua.
  E -vi chiederete voi- l' invidia era giustificata?
  Mettiamo per un attimo che voi sbadatamente non abbiate visto le 5 stellette.
  Capita talvolta di imbattersi in artisti unici nel loro campo che pur usando le tecniche di altri, magari anche affinandole,riescono a creare qualcosa di unico, Stradivari costruiva violini e altri strumenti (e non è che non si costruissero già da anni prima) in una maniera semplicemente unica e perfetta, che nessuno più nel corso della storia è riuscito ad eguagliare, Michelangelo con marmo di Carrara, utilizzato da tantissimi altri scultori della sua epoca e non solo, ha creato capolavori. E via di questo passo si potrebbe andare avanti alla' infinito, ma devo proprio? Credo che voi abbiate capito benissimo dove voglio arrivare.
  
  Quello che voglio dire è che per essere originali si può essere anche i più tradizionalisti dei tradizionalisti, in ogni caso il mondo lo si può rivoluzionare lo stesso.
  Katherine Mansfield ha assorbito ,ed è impregnata, di naturalismo francese. In particolare segue l' amato Cechov.
  Tuttavia il clima modernista della letteratura europea dei primi anni del novecento pervade i suoi racconti sempre più di raccolta in raccolta.
  E la porta a diventare sempre più originale, sempre più Mansfied.
  Non ho mai nascosto la mia preferenza per i racconti a scapito dei romanzi, e quando mi imbatto in racconti come questi rimango basita e ammirata, sono semplicemente perfetti, c' è tutto e in poche pagine eppure non potrebbero essere più completi.
  
  Peccato la Mansfield sia morta così prematuramente e così presto per due motivi principalmente :
  1. Avrei proprio voluto sapere cos'altro avrebbe combinato questa donna scapestrata e completamente libera se solo fosse vissuta un ' altro po.
  2. Ha lasciato purtroppo troppi racconti incompiuti, fra cui ne ho letti tantissimi di cui vorrei proprio sapere il seguito. Che rabbia! In ogni caso , sempre un ottimo stimolo per l' immaginazione...
  
  E cos' altro aggiungere se non che:se volete scrivere, se volete imparare come si fa, lei non può che aggiungersi alla lunga lista di scrittori da cui avete da imparare.
• 
  Alison

  This will not be a terribly thoughtful review, just an expression of excitement. I don’t know how I got this far in my life without anybody telling me what a wonderful writer Katherine Mansfield was. She was a master of the modern short story. When I consider most of the 20C short story collections I’ve read, I think that Mansfield got there first, and did it better. And there was a terrible moment when I saw why Virginia Woolf felt so threatened by her, because, if I’d read the book with no cover or front matter, I’d have thought, Wow, Virginia’s in really good form here! I’d only have been puzzled by the references to New Zealand. More thoughts here:
  
  
  http://alisonkinney.com/category/mans...
  
  Thanks!
• 
  Inderjit Sanghera

  atharine Mansfield's opalescent prose, like the diaphanous glimmer of pale winter sunshine on the  early morning frost, echoes and reverberates across her stories, suffusing it with a kind of sad, somnolent atmosphere, snapshots into the various facets of human behaviour, although the primary driving force behind Mansfield's portraits is sympathy;  sympathy for the vain and vapid; yet endearing Beryl or the impoverished Kelvey family in 'The Doll's House' or the timid and timorous Reginald in the wonderful 'Mrs and Mrs Dove' , Mansfield s uses pathos to explore the desire and motives of her characters, their dreams and hopes and the small, often unnoticed and un-celebrated but important moments of their lives.
  
  The Burnell family are one of the mainstays in Mansfield's stories, with 'Prelude' dealing with their recent move to the country-the story is dominated by light and its resplendence;
  
  "Long pencil rays of sunlight shone through and the wavy shadow of a bush outside danced on the golden lines. Now it was still, now it began to flutter again, and now it came as far as her feet."
  
  "Everything looked different-the painted wooden houses far smaller than they did by day, the gardens far bigger and wilder. Bright stars speckled the sky and the moon hung over the harbour dabbling the waves with gold."
  
  Light is largely symbolic of the story itself, the Burnell's are making  a fresh start, of life away form the hustle of the town and into the comparative freedom of the country, yet beneath Mansfield's picaresque prose, there likes a sense of apprehension, from the childish nervousness of Kezia and Lottie to Linda's baleful boredom with her at times fatuous husband  husband or Beryl's uncertainty about finding an unsuitable (rich) partner in the country. Few writers explored the inner lives of their female characters with as much depth and subtlety as Mansfield-sometimes, in the case of Beryl's soliloquies on her beauty, the reader becomes more sympathetic than expected, or in the case of Linda's outwardly boorish husband, Mansfield is able to late confound her initial characterisation-and reader expectations, by revealing that beneath the macho posturing he can be a kind and sensitive man, such as when he spends the whole day fretting about not saying goodbye to his wife Linda.
  
  Mansfield's painterly vignettes frequently evoke impressionism and it's obsession with light and natures as Mansfield describes the various textures of the natural world, from her Cezanne like description of a bowl of fruit in 'Je Ne Parle Pas Francais', or the Monet-esque descriptions of moon-light;
  
  "As they stood on the steps, the high grassy bank on which the aloe rested rose up like a wave, and the aloe seemed to ride upon it like a ship with the oars lifted. Bright moon-light hung upon the lifted oars like water, and the green waves glittered in the due."
  
  It is not just the impressionist obsessions with light which Mansfield was influenced by, but also some their social and psychological insights; her intimate and sensual descriptions of the female characters are reminiscent of Renoir, once can also spot the influences of French literature and poetry in some of the melancholic descriptions;
  
  "The far-away sky, a bright, pure blue-was reflected in the puddles and the drops , swimming along the telegraph poles, flashed into points of light. Now the leaping, glittering sea was so bright it made one's eyes ache to look at it."
  
  The other major influences in Mansfield-as with most modern story writers, is of course Chekhov, who Mansfield pastiches and often even plagiarises and whose concern with the down-trodden and pathetic is echoed in Mansfield's work. Yet, despite these obvious influences, Mansfield's art is wholly her original, her themes and style thoroughly post-modern, in which character motives and actions are rarely explained and left ambiguous and her shifts in narrative mean that Mansfield pioneered the post-modern concept of the writer no longer explaining everything to the reader, of engaging them by actively involving them in the art of story-telling and challenging their capacities. Indeed Mansfield's prose could be summed up in the following passage of self-reflection by a character; 
  
  "Yet everything had come down the tiniest, minutest particle and she did not feel her bed, she floated, held up in the air. Only she seemed to be listening with her wide open watchful eyes, waiting for someone who just did not come, watching for something to happen than just did not happen." 
• 
  Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all)

  Mansfield is one of my favourite authors. I first discovered a battered paperback pirate edition of
  Journal of Katherine Mansfield in a second-hand shop, and read it literally to pieces before it ocurred to me to look for her short stories. Her writing makes fine end-of-the-day reading; not to sit and read straight through, justlikethat, but to sip and savour. Short story is not usually my favourite genre, but then KM's short stories are completely unorthodox. She herself said that the more she wrote, the more she became aware that "what I am doing has no form!" Or at least no recognisable, codified form for the time.
  
  At last, for the first time, the reader has access to all her stories in one place. Those who have read her Journal in either the short form or the larger, exhaustive
  Katherine Mansfield Notebooks: Complete Edition will recognise jottings that were later expanded and completed. Even the fragments of scenes collated and published as
  The Dove's Nest And Other Stories have a finished air about them; some of them shine like jewels. One of my favourites is "The Canary" (1923), a deceptively simple monologue by an older woman. There's "nothing to it"--but there's so much in it!
  
  I wish Penguin had placed the stories and fragments in the order in which they were written, or at least published, so that it would be easier to see the progression in her craftmanship as a writer. As it is, the first collection,
  In a German Pension: 13 Stories comes at the very end of this edition. I guess you could say it provides a stark contrast with her more mature work; I have to admit I didn't like it much. I don't know whether she was consciously trying to be cynical and blasé, playing to an English audience of the time, or whether she simply disliked Germany, the Germans, and (particularly) their food and conversational habits, and used these stories as an exercise in payback! The influence of other authors is more pronounced in "Pension", particularly Chekov whom Mansfield so admired, in the final story, "A Blaze." If Elsa wasn't inspired by Professor Sebrekov's wife Elena from
  Uncle Vanya, I'd like very much to know where she came from. Another "German" story, "The Child Who Was Tired", resonates heavily with an older French short story (the name of its author escapes me), also about a child-nursemaid who strangles a baby just so she can get some sleep.
  
  This is one of those books I will return to again and again. Thank you, Kathy.
  
  ETA: The short story that Mansfield copied was by Anton Chekov and one of the English titles for it is "Sleepy." Mansfield was instrumental in translating many of Chekov's works, but in this case admiration spilled over into rank plagiarism. Perhaps she knew few people of the day had or would read it. Not nice at all, Kathy.
• 
  Aleksandra Ognanoska

  Mansfield once wrote: "My deepest desire is to be a writer, to have 'a body of work' done.." - a desire of hers she genuinely devoted to and indisputably fulfilled.
  
  The stories discuss themes such as: the profound impact of childhood upon the development of a person's life, interpersonal relationships, insecurities found within family and marriage, but also isolation, loneliness, escapism, struggle and hardship. Moreover, she touches upon themes like fear of intimacy, fear of losing oneself/one's identity into a relationship, and probes deeply into the second self - more often than not (as seen from the stories) hidden from others.
  
  The stories are written in a highly aesthetic manner and are rich with depth. Mansfield's stories will allow you to journey through Europe and New Zealand, make you feel like you live by the sea, inhale the sea air, or walk the lemon-scented streets of Paris. Personally, the strikingly rich and artistic imagery coincided with some beloved memories of mine: scratching my cat's head, receving a postcard, listening to jazz on a rainy day, eating ice cream on a hot summer afternoon.
  
  The stories burst with fun-loving children, aspiring artists, quarreling adults, wistful romantics, but ultimately lovable and relatable characters. Moreover, many of the characters don't live up to the society's "expected" role of them, but instead cultivate their own authentic self. Mansfield's masterful creations of emotionally raw and intelectually open characters result in providing the reader just enough time to form a personal bond with the character.
  
  In order to set the intimate and serene mood, she embraces meditative elaborations on nature. The sudden revelations of the characters and the emotional subtlety are delivered by the shifts in setting. In terms of language, the stories are rich with vocabulary, endowed with floral metaphors and witty comebacks. The tone of the dialogues between the children is comic and a bit more satirical between the adults. The stories brim with the epiphanies, ideas, thoughts, feelings and daydreams of the characters. Simply taken aback by how briskly Mansfielf travels in and out of the character's mind!
  
  It's a great pity she died so young, since one of her main aims was to celebrate humanity throughout her lifetime. In the speech of Mansfield herself, her stories: "enchant the eye, inspire the soul and fill the mind with the great beauty of contemplation". All considered, Mansfield doubtlessly possessed a beyond extraordinary talent for writing, sharp focus and exquisite observational skills. Warmly recommend!
• 
  Rachel M

  Mansfield glimmers and sparkles like a Monet painting, and prismatically collects poignant little images and pieces of life. Her short stories thrill me, and whenever I need a new taste of life, I seek her out. Some of her images have captured me for years, and have become private jokes. When the woman meets a man she once loved in Dill Pickle and “the tiger which had slumbered peacefully roused and woke himself”- and the girl in Garden Party, whose entire life of luxury is shattered when she comes upon a cottage in which the father of the household has just died, the “inward expression when one has swallowed cream.” Beautiful, unique writer.
• 
  Paul Ataua

  Maybe I should have bought the selected stories rather than the collected stories. I read a story every couple of days for the last few months before going to sleep. All the stories are interesting little vignettes and many stay with you long after you close the book, but the old favorites really stand out, 'The Garden Party, 'Bliss', and , of course, one of my favorite stories of all time - 'The Doll's House'. It is one of those stories that I can read over and over again and find more in it.
• 
  Matthew White

  I have finally emerged from the murky literary pit that is the Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield. As is natural with entire compendiums of an author’s work, the reader really has to sift for the strands of gold that lie among the mud. The vast majority of this volume is comprised of fumbling attempts at crafting another The Garden Party or Miss Brill, for instance. Hundreds of scenarios there may be, but the general theme is largely the same throughout, rendering the collection as something of a grey cloud of banal social commentary.
  
  Mansfield’s writing is humorous, ironic, and bittersweet. It unfalteringly takes the post of surveying middle to upper class English people, with very much a judgmental and cynical gaze, yet somewhat sadly, grounded in a familiar and knowing tone. Certainly, one would not write so eruditely and accurately about a specific people without having immediate experience living as, or at least in the company of, those brittle individuals themselves.
  
  Commendation should be given to the writing style portrayed throughout these writings; this is a good and probably much-imitated example of the Modernist mode in that stories begin and end abruptly, change focus, and shift perspective on a whim. If the tired recurring plot devices and settings become laborious to get through, at least the crafting of the stories themselves can be observed and inspected, providing some form of academic inspiration.
  
  Best taken in small doses, lest the reader particularly enjoys an extended reading experience taken under the grey London sky, with a mouthful of ash and honey.
• 
  maggie

  These stories were written around the time of WW1 and yet they are so fresh and the acute observations of human interaction resonate 100 years on. I particularly enjoyed the stories set in New Zealand - a window on a genteel life not quite English. This whole collection is just a feast.
• 
  notgettingenough

  The only short-story writer that comes close to Chekhov. Brilliant.
• 
  Elizabeth (Alaska)

  29 Aug 2020: "The Garden Party" was my first read by Katherine Mansfield. I liked how she was able to convey the excitement of the family as they readied for the party. Also well drawn was the contrast between this well-to-do family and those who lived in the "cottages" at the bottom of the hill. Definitely look forward to more of these stories, which I'll read scattered among other longer reads.
• 
  Simon Robs

  Reading amassed short story collection(s), in this case 5 books comprised of 88 stories can be a slog or as here, a gliding motion of heart/soul bearing the reader on a time and place tableau ticker where social history comes to life, mindful prose built with gusto vision. It's no wonder her artistic peer Virginia Woolf both admired and begrudged KM's talent. She lived a short, emphatic and tempestuous life where her writing kept her through the choppy surf of fulfillment. Her stories show how well her eye/ear took in her time's engagements - she unflinchingly lays out unflattering looks at quotidian life in its raw and dirty state. Her patrician characterizations would today draw ire from the PC crowd but that's part of the fascinating charm of reading dated texts whose work in contrast/context stands up to the currency of todays more blitzy prose. Very good reading!
• 
  E. G.

  Introduction and Notes
  Selected Further Reading
  
  Bliss
  --Prelude
  --Je ne Parle pas Français
  --Bliss
  --The Wind Blows
  --Psychology
  --Pictures
  --The Man Without a Temperament
  --Mr. Reginald Peacock's Day
  --Sun and Moon
  --Feuille d'Album
  --A Dill Pickle
  --The Little Governess
  --Revelations
  --The Escape
  
  The Garden-Party
  --At the Bay
  --The Garden-Party
  --The Daughters of the Late Colonel
  --Mr. and Mrs. Dove
  --The Young Girl
  --Life of Ma Parker
  --Marriage à la Mode
  --The Voyage
  --Miss Brill
  --Her First Ball
  --The Singing Lesson
  --The Stranger
  --Bank Holiday
  --An Ideal Family
  --The Lady's Maid
  
  The Doves' Nest
  --The Doll's House
  --Honeymoon
  --A Cup of Tea
  --Taking the Veil
  --The Fly
  --The Canary
  
  Unfinished Stories
  --A Married Man's Story
  --The Doves' Nest
  --Six Years After
  --Daphne
  --Father and the Girls
  --All Serene!
  --A Bad Idea
  --A Man and His Dog
  --Such a Sweet Old Lady
  --Honesty
  --Susannah
  --Second Violin
  --Mr. and Mrs. Williams
  --Weak Heart
  --Widowed
  
  Something Childish
  --The Tiredness of Rosabel
  --How Pearl Button was Kidnapped
  --The Journey to Bruges
  --A Truthful Adventure
  --New Dresses
  --The Woman at the Store
  --Ole Underwood
  --The Little Girl
  --Millie
  --Pension Séguin
  --Violet
  --Bains Turcs
  --Something Childish but very Natural
  --An Indiscreet Journey
  --Spring Pictures
  --Late at Night
  --Two Tuppenny Ones, Please
  --The Black Cap
  --A Suburban Fairy Tale
  --Carnation
  --See-Saw
  --This Flower
  --The Wrong House
  --Sixpence
  --Poison
  
  In a German Pension
  --Germans at Meat
  --The Baron
  --The Sister of the Baroness
  --Frau Fischer
  --Frau Brechenmacher Attends a Wedding
  --The Modern Soul
  --At Lehmann's
  --The Luft Bad
  --A Birthday
  --The Child-Who-Was-Tired
  --The Advanced Lady
  --The Swing of the Pendulum
  --A Blaze
• 
  Abelarda

  Si tratta si storie brevi che ritraggono scene ed istanti di vita famigliare negli anni a cavallo tra la fine dell'Ottocento ed i primi del Novecento. Paiono spesso istanti rubati, come spiati o origliati da qualcuno in un luogo pubblico - cosa che gli stessi protagonisti dei racconti sono spesso sono intenti a fare.
  Tanto spazio è dedicato all'introspezione, all'effetto che una morte o un lutto lascia dietro di sé, alla distanza tra le persone che appare incolmabile anche nei legami d'amore ed affettivi più stretti (amanti, novelli sposi, coppie rodate, fratelli, genitori e figli).
  Le descrizioni dei fiori e della natura più in generale si inseriscono spesso come metafore di quello che la scrittrice non può dire e che, quando sono più criptiche di un signorotto che si dice invidioso della grossa pianta di pisello odoroso del vicino, sono composte in maniera così poetica da risultare dolcissime anche a chi magari, come me, non ne coglie il vero significato (mi sarebbe piaciuto avere delle note a riguardo).
  
  A mio avviso c'è da fare una nota di biasimo alla traduttrice (Franca Cavagnoli e la sua classe di traduzione dell'Università di Milano) perché capisco magari la fedeltà al testo (la ipotizzo) ma nel 2014 i personaggi neri non possono parlare così: "Berchè non mi lascia le bambine (...) botrebbero venire stasera (...) bisogna bortare via anche quelle cose dal vialetto, vero?" né si può tradurre il parlottare di persone cinesi (chiamate "musi gialli" senza che vi sia un intento realmente denigratorio nella storia) ripetendo degli Ya-ya.
  
  Le mie storie preferite sono Immagini, La festa in giardino, Le figlie del defunto colonnello, Vita di Ma'Parker, La mosca, La bambina e Millie.
• 
  Alan

  Ho usato per insegnare a Mansfield in inglese o di Naipaul "Miguel Street" o di Hemingway "Kilimanjaro". Esilarante satira su buone maniere, dove i tedeschi sono come gli americani, sulle funzioni corporee franche. "I tedeschi a base di carne" satira subordinazione delle mogli tedesche, i loro mariti alimentazione. "Il Barone" satira l'ossessione tedesca con il cibo che porta all'obesità, a cui noi americani oggi li superano. Ho ricevuto alcune buone carte da universitari matricole donne soprattutto.
• 
  Maria

  Sempre és difícil puntuar i ressenyar una recopilació d'obres completes d'algú, perquè hi ha un grapat d'històries que m'han semblat espectaculars i alhora també m'he trobat d'altres que la veritat no sé molt bé a què venien, i posar-li dues estrelles tan planeres i avorrides em sembla injust i sobresimplificat quan en realitat la meva experiència de lectura ha anat des de la frustració extrema a l'admiració i la sorpresa. Així que més que a l'autora al complet recomanaria una selecció.
• 
  Cirtnecce

  I just finished reading Katherine Mansfield’s The Collected Stories and I am sitting in awe….there is no other word except awe! Actually I take that back, I am in awe and at the same time kicking myself for being stupid – why the hell did it take me soooooooooo long to get around reading her work????? I remember trying to read her works, way back as a teenager, and then I do not know what happened!! Where the hell did I pick up the idea that she was of the Kate Chopin (The Awakening makes me want to never ever awake!!) Or my bigger reading albatross Virginia Wool (Shudder! Shudder!! One day I will bravely tread those choppy waters, but not now!) While it is true that Katherine Mansfield did interact with Virginia Woolf and was for a time a believer of Fauvism, her writings are her own – original, poignant and completely realistic.
  
  The Complete Short Stories of Katherine Mansfield is an all-embracing assemblage of her short stories, including – Bliss and Other Stories, The Garden Party and Other Stories, The Dove’s Nest, Something Childish and Other stories and In a German Pension. This collection also contains her unfinished stories. How do I describe out nearly 100 short stories, which are my favorite? I just love them all – I love Bliss for its heart wrenching end, the broken pieces of illusion; I love The Garden Party for it generosity and sensitivity and I felt such sadness for the The Daughters of the Late Colonel, for their servitude, for their devotion and lack of independence. I love all the stories of the German Pension and though Katherine Mansfield called those stories “immature’, I loved the irony and the subtle mockery of mankind and its pretensions. Stories like Je ne parle pas français and The Dolls House made me cry, especially the latter for its brutal portrayal of weakness of men and women and the pain they inflict on innocents because of their own failures! I absolutely admire the way she speaks of children and their loneliness or attachments or fears, whether it’s the Prelude, or How Pearl Button was Kidnapped or The Little Girl! I cannot decide, I like all her works!
  
  How do I define her work? I can only use adjectives …ok maybe some verbs! Her language is sheer poetry, whether describing a new house or the sea. It evokes such wonderful imagery in the reader’s mind and some of my favorite passages are of her nature descriptions, especially of New Zealand. Her stories are however anything but colloquial or restricted in New Zealand; though they are based in as far flung locales as New Zealand, France, England and Germany, her stories are universal. Her portrayal of marriage, both good and bad kind is real and hard-hitting. Despite being a “bluestocking” , she gives a very rational portrait of men and women, though being a woman, she does bring out the various nuances of a woman’s character far more adeptly than her presentation of her men. Her women are all kinds – brilliant, loving, sparkling, lonely, independent, deprived, unkind, courageous and humorous. They are extremely humane. Long back I had read Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex where she said that only three female authors have explored ‘the given’ – the disproportionate struggle for women to seek what is given for men – education, economic power, political platform; the three woman who have managed to question this were Emily Bronte, Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield. I now understand what Simone Beauvoir meant; Mansfield through her stories constantly challenged and questioned the unequal struggle that women had to go through for those basic things in life, which men so easily took for granted – independence, economy and security. But to call all Mansfield writing as feminist is a narrow and unidimesional categorization that is absolutely inaccurate; while she wrote a lot about women, she also wrote about things like love, relationships and some marvelously succinct and astute insight into the lives of children. It’s a tragedy that she died so young, for even her unfinished short stories had such promise of richness.
  
  In the end, all I can say is that one cannot truly describe Mansfield and do justice to it. One has to read her work, sit back and savor it and only then does her brilliance completely sink in!
  
• 
  Filomena

  Da
  Filomena scrive...
  In realtà questo volume è tra i libri che ho “in lettura” da molto, molto tempo…
  Però è l’ideale quando esci e hai poco tempo da dedicare alla lettura, in più è leggerissimo e l’aspetto lo rende decisamente chic!
  
  Insieme ai giusti accessori moda, la lettura è ancora più piacevole!
  
  I racconti che ho letto finora, sono tutti molto interessanti, qualcuno è molto lungo e in alcuni si ritrovano gli stessi personaggi.
  
  Per ora il mio preferito è Garden Party, ma non ho ancora finito di leggere tutto il libro, solo alla fine della lettura vi saprò dire quale, di tutti i racconti, è il migliore secondo me.
• 
  Lucia Gannon

  Some stories really enjoyable. Others disappointing. Had not read Katherine Mansfield so didn't know what to expect. Not as gripping as others such as Edith Wharton or Margaret Atwood. Did not read all of them which is not like me so might not be doing her justice.
• 
  Francesca

  4-4.5/5
• 
  Raul

  One story after the next, each breathtaking and incredible. One of the best collection of short stories I've read.
• 
  Jaylen

  Read this for class! Enjoyable!
  
  Part of my reasoning when choosing this course about modernism at university was that we read Katherine Mansfield, the apple of Ali Smith's eye. I really enjoy Smith, and jumped at the opportunity to read Mansfield.
  
  These short stories were altogether interesting, some more enjoyable than others. I find the way Mansfield plays with identity to be very interesting and how she inhabited all these different personas in life and throughout her initial publication in periodicals. It may speak to her feeling as an outsider as well - giving her agency to take on these different personas and identities. This plurality descends down to Smith as well and maybe even the short story as a form. Both writers are able to inhabit their characters for just a moment, then move onto the next story. I am quite interested in that changing sense of identity and their attentiveness to identity.
  
  In Je ne parle pas francais and Miss Brill there is certainly an interest in uncovering people's identities and who they are, both seeing identity as a 'portmanteau' and something fluid that they wish to excavate and breakdown in order to understand. Makes me think of Smith's The Accidental and how the character Amber is able to shed light on other characters, their perspective and who they are. Also Smith's How to be Both and the fluidity surrounding identity. In class we talked about the blurring of characters, for example Laura and Laurie in The Garden Party and of course Bertha and Little B in Bliss. Both adding to this idea of plurality. Smith has that too! Pertinently in her story The Ex-Wife where the speaker, her partner and Mansfield (who also becomes a character) are all blurred.
  
  Did not really jive with the appropriating that went on in some of the short stories. Mansfield inhabits the voices of Maori people in an uncomfortable way and kind of uses them to discuss the idea of romantic primitivism. This is particularly apparent in The Kidnapping of Pearl Button in which Mansfield collectively and wrongly summarises Maori women as 'dark women'. Did not vibe with that at all. Boehmer talks about Mansfield inhabiting the position of the other and then using that position as an outsider to discuss "outsiders", so again there is a sense of layering and mystique of individuals who do not belong. Sure, this is interesting, though I wonder to what extent we now view this as shady, and appropriating the voices of the marginalized.
  
  Favourite short story was Her First Ball. Thought it was a wonderful piece about being young growing up. I really felt for Leila as a character and was elated when she dismissed the grumpy fat man (as Mansfield calls him) so that she may enjoy her evening and dance the night away. This bit in particular had my heart.

  "For it was thrilling. Her first ball! She was only at the beginning of everything. it seemed to her that she had never known what the night was like before. Up till now it had been dark, silent, beautiful very often - oh yes - but mournful somehow. Solemn. And now it would never be like that again - it had opened dazzling bright."

  
  
  Overall, a good time! Reading Mansfield has not only added to my understanding of colonial writers and 'outsiders', I've also gotten to engage with Smith, which is perfectly alright with me.
• 
  Elisha

  My quarantine project was to read a short story from this collection every day, and, whilst I didn't quite achieve that (I missed the odd day and sometimes read more than one story at a time), I'm extremely proud of myself for getting through the entirety of this massive book. I'm not sure how much else I'll have to show for my time in lockdown apart from this and an essay which is driving me slowly insane, so I'm taking all the wins that I can right now.
  
  Mansfield is a masterful writer of the short story, as everyone knows, and I'm really glad to have taken the opportunity to read more of her work than just
  Bliss after all these years. Had this book just consisted of the two most familiar volumes of Mansfield's work -
  The Garden Party and Other Stories and
  Bliss & Other Stories - then I'd probably have given it 5 stars, because I felt like there was something magnificent that I read in every single story in those two publications, even though some were obviously better than others. However, this Wordsworth Classics collection also includes Mansfield's early work and some of the stories that she left unfinished at her death, all of which are fine, but not quite up to the standards of her more famous pieces, so I settled for a 4 star rating overall to balance out the two halves of this collection.
  
  The other reason why I didn't quite feel able to give this book 5 stars is that it is arranged by QUALITY and not CHRONOLOGY (i.e. the two famous publications are first, then the unfinished stuff, then the juvenalia). This means that you burn through all of the masterpieces in the first 300 pages, and everything following on from there is a little bit of a disappointment. As a result, I wasn't enjoying reading this collection nearly as much by the end as I was at the beginning. However, it was still a very rewarding experience to view all of Mansfield's work together, because doing so enables you to see exactly why she's regarded as one of the greats. She had natural talent, yes, but she also worked damn hard to refine herself from a decent short story writer to someone that practically redefined the form, and she had so much more to give than she was able to. It truly is tragic that she died so young, because she was an exceptional woman in all the ways that it's possible to be exceptional. It has been a pleasure to spend so much of my time in her company.
  
  My particular favourite stories from this collection are as follows:
  'Je Ne Parle Pas Francais'
  'Bliss'
  'Psychology'
  'A Dill Pickle'
  'The Little Governess'
  'At the Bay'
  'The Garden-Party'
  'Marriage a la Mode'
  'Honeymoon'
  'A Cup of Tea'
  'Taking the Veil'
  'The Fly'
  'A Married Man's Story'
  'Six Years After'
  'The Black Cap'