Katherine Mansfield's clear, sparkling short stories revolutionised the genre, and this collection represents the whole range of her writing. Moving, resonant, full of light and colour, they span short studies to longer tales, encompassing her three major volumes, Bliss, The Garden Party and In a German Pension, plus fifteen tantalising fragments of unfinished stories published after her death - including 'Honesty', an intriguing tale of two bachelors, and 'The Doves' Nest', an exquisite story of a widowed mother and her daughter on the Riviera who receive a mysterious gentleman caller. Observing apparently trivial incidents to creative sensitive and quietly devastating revelation of her characters' inner lives, these deceptively simple stories confirm Mansfield's status as a pioneering Modernist writer.
In her new introduction to this edition Ali Smith discusses the intensity of Katherine Mansfield's life and writing, and her radical influence on English fiction.