6 h 39 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 6 h 39 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
A party takes shape, a neighbour dies, and a young girl must decide what matters.
In Katherine Mansfield’s The Garden Party, and Other Stories, ordinary hours hold difficult choices. Laura Sheridan helps prepare her family’s afternoon party, but a neighbour’s death unsettles her pleasure. In At the Bay, mist lifts over a New Zealand seaside settlement, where watchful Kezia Burnell notices more about the adults around her than they think.
The Daughters of the Late Colonel follows Constantia and Josephine as they face life beyond their father’s rule. Miss Brill finds pleasure in watching a Sunday crowd, while The Life of Ma Parker follows a working woman carrying private grief. Across fifteen short stories, Mansfield reveals hopes, silences and class divisions through a hat, a fur or a change in light.
What you’ll discover
- A celebration under question Follow Laura as her delight in party preparations meets a troubling question about her neighbours.
- Freedom after long obedience Meet two sisters who must learn to choose after a lifetime under their father’s will.
- A child’s watchful eye See family life through Kezia’s plain questions and her close attention to the grown-ups.
- Joy beside loneliness Share Miss Brill’s Sunday pleasures and Leila’s eager hopes for her first dance.
- Small things carrying meaning Notice how familiar objects reveal what people hide, hope for and struggle to say.
Who will love it
You will love this book if you enjoy short fiction built from small moments, and if you notice what people leave unsaid.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Ordinary moments reveal hidden wishes
- A bright day holds private feelings
- Laura's kindness meets a pretty hat
- Obedience survives the father's death
- Ma Parker needs room to grieve
- Company does not guarantee belonging
- Privilege appears in small assumptions
- Objects and shifting viewpoints carry feeling
- Close attention reveals an ordinary life
Who’s who
- Laura SheridanThe youngest Sheridan girl, warm and eager, who wants to be kind and is easily swayed by pretty things.
- Kezia BurnellA curious, stubborn little girl who loves her grandmother and refuses to accept that anyone must die.
- Stanley BurnellA hurried, anxious father and businessman who wants to be loved and to be first in everything.
- Beryl FairfieldLinda's young sister, who longs for a lover to rescue her from a life she finds dull.
- Josephine and Constantia PinnerTwo timid middle-aged sisters who have spent their lives obeying a stern father and now do not know what to want.
- Ma ParkerAn old cleaning woman who has buried husband, children and grandson and wants only a place to cry.
- Miss BrillA lonely teacher who spends Sundays in the park, listening to strangers and imagining she belongs to the show.
- LeilaA country girl at her first ball, wanting every moment to last.
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- Hardcover
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- Large print hardcover
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The Garden Party, and Other Stories
by Katherine Mansfield · 1922
A girl in a new hat is told to forget a dead neighbor while the party band tunes up on the lawn.
Easy read2–5 hours to read2 languages
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In short
A man dashes into a cold sea at dawn to be first in, and finds his neighbor already floating far out. A girl begs her family to cancel a party because a stranger has died, then cannot take her eyes off her new hat.
The Garden Party, and Other Stories at a glance
- Reading time
- About 3 h 55 min3 h 5 min fast, 4 h 40 min slow
- Length
- 55,900 words
- Library level
- Easy short sentences, plain words
- First published
- 1922by Katherine Mansfield
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A seaside morning wakes up slowly
The book opens with At the Bay, set in a New Zealand seaside colony. Before sunrise a white mist hides the beach and the hills. A shepherd walks through it with his flock and an old dog named Wag. When the sun climbs, the mist rushes away and the water glitters.
A man in a striped bathing suit races over the sand and plunges into the waves. He is Stanley Burnell, and he believes he is always the first one in. This morning Jonathan Trout is already out there, floating and cheerful. Stanley is annoyed, announces that he has work to do, and swims off feeling cheated.
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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
- 1922
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 4 h 20 min
- Level
- Easy read
Cite this edition
Mansfield, Katherine. The Garden Party, and Other Stories. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-garden-party-and-other-stories.
Mansfield, K. (2026). The garden party, and other stories. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-garden-party-and-other-stories (Original work published 1922)
Mansfield, Katherine. The Garden Party, and Other Stories. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-garden-party-and-other-stories.
@book{mansfield2026garden,
author = {Mansfield, Katherine},
title = {The Garden Party, and Other Stories},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-garden-party-and-other-stories},
note = {First published 1922}
}
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What is The Garden Party and Other Stories about?
It is a collection of short stories about everyday life, each centered on one day or moment. Children, servants, wives, teachers and old people face small crises of love, class, grief and loneliness, told through their thoughts.
What happens in the story The Garden Party?
Laura Sheridan helps prepare a grand afternoon party for her family. When she hears that a poor neighbor has died in an accident nearby, she wants to cancel it, but her family laughs at the idea.
Is The Garden Party based on a true story?
The stories are fiction, but Mansfield drew on her New Zealand childhood and on the places she lived later. At the Bay in particular recalls a seaside colony near Wellington. The collection appeared in 1922.
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
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