MP3 Audios - Classic Literature

"With the timing and phrasing of a musician, Marguerite Gavin narrates this last-published collection of Katherine Mansfield's short stories. Gavin has a lovely singing voice that particularly enhances one of the stories about a singing teacher. She generally reads with a great deal of enthusiasm and expression."--AudioFile

"[Marguerite Gavin's] voices are marvelous; presenting British accents of every description from cockney to Queen, with clear delineation between characters male and female, is a skill especially important in these character-driven tales. Her sound effects (birdcalls, running water, etc.) are perfect, and she sings in such a lovely clear soprano that the listener wishes there were more songs in the stories....highly recommended."--Library Journal

The fifteen stories collected in this volume demonstrate the genius of a woman who, in her own short lifetime, was compared to Chekhov. The tales are sensitive revelations of human behavior in quite ordinary situations. The men, women, and especially the children whom Mansfield portrays in such delicate pastels are involved in no sensational episodes, yet they are vividly true to life. With careful, quiet observation and subtle irony, Mansfield investigates the variety of relationships that make up a life and the complex emotions of unfulfilled longings. In the title story, a young woman's garden party coincides with the death of a working-class neighbor, bringing a brush of mortality and realism into her carefully constructed plans and ideals. The Garden Party was the last of Mansfield's works to be published before her untimely death at the age of 35.