Summary
The Garden Party, and Other Stories is a luminous collection of short fiction by Katherine Mansfield, one of the foremost voices in early 20th-century modernist literature. The title story, The Garden Party, centers on young Laura Sheridan, who comes of age during the preparations for an upper-class garden party interrupted by news of a worker’s tragic death nearby.
Through Laura’s inner conflict, Mansfield subtly critiques class divisions and the fragility of innocence.
Other stories in the collection—such as The Daughters of the Late Colonel, Life of Ma Parker, and Miss Brill—delve into the intimate lives of women, the elderly, and the socially invisible. With emotional precision and psychological depth, Mansfield captures fleeting moments of beauty, disillusionment, and human vulnerability.
Each story is a delicate slice of life, filled with atmospheric detail and understated emotion, reflecting Mansfield’s gift for turning the ordinary into something profound.