Short Stories

This collection gathers the short stories Mansfield wrote in the 1910s and early 1920s. Typical pieces observe a household or a few hours: a garden party, a ship, a boarding house, a colonial childhood in New Zealand, a woman at a cafe. Plots are slight; the turn is a shift of feeling or a glimpse that changes how a character sees her life. Recurring subjects are class, illness, the inner lives of girls and women, and the gap between social performance and private panic. The book is a body of independent impressionist stories, not a novel and not a journal.

Quarter-bound in blue cloth with pattern printed yellow paper boards. Blue slipcase.