Audiobook · read by volunteers
Garden Party
Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923)
Read by Lucy Burgoyne (1950-2014) · 16 chapters · 6 h 46
About the book
Laura’s mother is giving a garden party, and the marquee is going up on the lawn, the roses are out and the band is on its way. Then comes the news that a man from the cottages below has died in an accident. The tension between the cheerful preparations and a death so close by is the centre of the title story in Katherine Mansfield’s collection, which also includes the long, shimmering At the Bay and the poignant Daughters of the Late Colonel. Mansfield writes with extraordinary sensitivity to light, gesture and the unspoken. Sixteen chapters and nearly seven hours, read by a single voice, bring together stories of childhood, family and quiet disillusion. A small masterpiece of the modern short story. Quietly brilliant.
Introduction
Katherine Mansfield, who lived from 1888 to 1923, was born in Wellington, New Zealand, and spent most of her adult life in England and France. She is regarded as one of the leading writers of the modern short story, and she is often counted among New Zealand’s most celebrated writers. She died of tuberculosis at only thirty-four, which gave her relatively short career a particular poignancy.
The Garden Party and Other Stories was published in 1922, the year before her death, and it collects some of her most admired work. The stories are short on plot and rich in atmosphere. Mansfield concentrates on a moment, a conversation, or a glance, and from it she builds a picture of a whole life. She was influenced by Chekhov, and she shares his interest in the gap between what people say and what they feel. Many of the stories draw on her memories of New Zealand, where she grew up.
The recording includes the title story, At the Bay, The Daughters of the Late Colonel and others. At the Bay is presented in two parts. Her writing is delicate, with a precise sense of detail, and the stories reward careful listening, since a gesture or a pause may carry the meaning.
This LibriVox edition has sixteen chapters and lasts nearly seven hours. It is read by one volunteer, Lucy Burgoyne, who died in 2014. Mansfield’s stories are short, subtle and often surprising, so they work well for listening in small portions, and they linger in the mind long after the final line.
Public domain
Katherine Mansfield died in 1923: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text