7 h 27 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 7 h 27 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
How much can a dinner party, a chance meeting, or a brief silence reveal about the feelings we hide?
In Katherine Mansfield’s Bliss, and Other Stories, ordinary life becomes strange and charged with feeling. Prelude follows the Burnell family into a new home, where adults and children share rooms but inhabit different worlds. In Bliss, Bertha Young’s intense happiness shapes her view of her marriage, her child, and her dinner guests.
Other encounters expose the distance between affection and understanding. In A Dill Pickle, former lovers remember their relationship differently. Sun and Moon places children at the edge of an adult celebration, while The Little Governess follows a young woman whose journey toward employment tests her trust in strangers.
What you’ll discover
- A household of separate worlds Enter the Burnells’ new home, where childhood perceptions meet domestic duties and adult dissatisfaction.
- Happiness that fills a room Follow Bertha Young as overwhelming joy colours everything she sees in her home and guests.
- One past, different memories Listen as former lovers reveal how little a shared experience guarantees a shared understanding.
- Through a child’s eyes Notice the details children catch while the adult world remains bewildering and out of reach.
- The weight of small things Discover how a meal, a remembered sound, or silence carries desire, resentment, and loneliness.
Who will love it
This book suits readers who love close portraits of moods, marriages and small crises, and who enjoy a sharp ear for how people talk.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Two small girls are left behind in the move
- The new house holds a dozen private lives
- A young writer plays a part he cannot hold
- One woman's joy meets a dinner party
- Two stories of feelings that go unspoken
- Hopeful dreamers meet a hard world
- Marriages that run on duty and strain
- Children and lovers see what adults miss
- Travelers learn how kindness can mislead
- Mansfield tells each story from inside
Who’s who
- Kezia BurnellA watchful little girl who sees and feels more than the adults around her, and who wants to be understood without being asked.
- Linda BurnellKezia's tired mother, who loves her husband and children but longs for quiet and for something she cannot quite name.
- Stanley BurnellLinda's energetic, proud husband, who delights in his bargain house and wants everyone around him to be happy with it.
- Beryl FairfieldLinda's young sister, who plays a charming part for others and fears that her real self is hollow.
- Raoul DuquetteA young Parisian writer who talks about himself endlessly and treats every feeling as material for a story.
- Bertha YoungA happy wife who is suddenly overwhelmed by joy at a dinner party and wants to know what it is leading to.
- Ada MossA stout singer in a London boarding house who goes from agency to agency hoping for one lucky day.
- Reginald PeacockA singing teacher in love with his own voice who thinks of himself as an artist and of his wife as a burden.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
- On your phone, tablet or computer, once the book texts are online.
- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, once the book texts are online.
- Audiobook
- Read by Lucas Linden, complete. It opens once the recording is online.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 14 minutes, to read today.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Glückseligkeit und andere Erzählungen
by Katherine Mansfield · 1920
As a tree blooms outside, Bertha Young feels an intense joy she cannot explain.
Medium level2–5 hours to readDeutsch
Learn a language with medium classicsSpanischFranzösischDeutschItalienischJapanischPortugiesischEnglischHow we measure levels
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In short
Why would a happy woman feel afraid of her own joy? Bertha Young, thirty years old, walks home on a spring afternoon with a bright fire burning in her chest.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Two small girls are left behind in the move
Prelude begins with a house move, and it begins with the children nobody has room for. The Burnell family leaves town in a buggy piled with bags. Lottie and Kezia, two small girls in coats with brass anchor buttons, are told to wait on the lawn.
A neighbor keeps them for the afternoon. At her noisy table Kezia chooses strawberries over bread and dripping, and everyone laughs at her. Later she wanders alone through the empty house, the wind rises, and she feels that something called IT is waiting just behind her. The storeman's cart saves her from that fear.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1920
- Language
- Deutsch
- Reading time
- 4 h 50 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Mansfield, Katherine. Bliss, and Other Stories. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/bliss-and-other-stories.
Mansfield, K. (2026). Bliss, and other stories. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/bliss-and-other-stories (Original work published 1920)
Mansfield, Katherine. Bliss, and Other Stories. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/bliss-and-other-stories.
@book{mansfield2026bliss,
author = {Mansfield, Katherine},
title = {Bliss, and Other Stories},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/bliss-and-other-stories},
note = {First published 1920}
}
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What is Bliss and Other Stories about?
It is a collection of fourteen short stories by Katherine Mansfield. Each follows ordinary people at a charged moment, such as a house move, a dinner party or a train ride, and shows the feelings they cannot say aloud.
What does the aloe mean in Prelude?
The aloe is a spiky plant on an island in the Burnells' drive. Linda imagines it as a ship carrying her away, and she says it flowers only once in a hundred years.
Which stories are in the collection?
It includes 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 and The Escape.
The author
Katherine Mansfield
1888–1923 · New Zealand short story writer
Katherine Mansfield was a New Zealand-born writer who transformed the modern short story in her brief life — Virginia Woolf admitted Mansfield's was the only writing she was ever jealous of. The Garden Party, and Other Stories catches whole lives inside small, luminous moments.
More by Katherine Mansfield
Alle Bücher des Autors ansehenMore like this
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