- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New edition edition (22 Feb 1990)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0140181466
- ISBN-13: 978-0140181463
- Product Dimensions: 19.3 x 13 x 1.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 593,082 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Bliss (Penguin Mini Modern Classics)
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
This recording presents six of the thirteen stories originally published together in the 1920s... Each is served up by Juliet Stevenson as a rare delicacy, each character brought forth with perfect accent and timbre, each tale with full awareness of every nuance. The result? The listener is blessed with the good fortune of hearing two great storytellers working in concert, and it is absolute bliss --Maine Portland, AudioFile
Juliet Stevenson is the perfect narrator for these six delicately observed stories. In one, Bertha in her white dress and jade beads presides over a dinner party, her happiness to be obliterated by seeing her husband kiss heavy-lidded Pearl; in another, ex-lovers meet again beside a Japanese vase of paper daffodils. Unbeatable. --Rachel Redford, The Observer --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
Juliet Stevenson is the perfect narrator for these six delicately observed stories. In one, Bertha in her white dress and jade beads presides over a dinner party, her happiness to be obliterated by seeing her husband kiss heavy-lidded Pearl; in another, ex-lovers meet again beside a Japanese vase of paper daffodils. Unbeatable. --Rachel Redford, The Observer --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
Product Description
Wordsworth Classics covers a huge list of beloved works of literature in English and translations. This growing series is rigorously updated, with scholarly introductions and notes added to new titles.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This review is based on the one I wrote for 'The Garden Party'.
If you like Penelope Lively or Tracy Chevalier, chances are you will love Katherine Mansfield's stories.
This is a collection of captivating short stories about life in the early 20th century. The author is a painter with words - she beautifully captures the colours, textures and atmosphere of the places and people she writes about, encapsulating a beauty and tranquillity that existed before the technological age; yet her stories are in no way sentimental. On the contrary, there is an edgy, almost surreal quality about them, and they seem to loiter at the fragile limits of concrete experience and human equanimity. They tap into real human feelings, never presuming to analyse fully, but only to understand with deep empathy the concerns, wishes, hopes and dreams that flow through our lives. Mansfield crafts each story with care - though seamlessly - and so each one satisfies the reader by having a theme, a development of it, and a resolution (even if this is an emotional state rather than a dramatic event). Finally, I wouldn't want you to assume that these stories are dreamy or passive. There are also some powerful and dramatic elements, so that reading them can be an emotionally intense experience. For example, 'The Little Governess' bowls you along unwittingly, in happy oblivion, until - but I wouldn't want to spoil it for you. The eponymous 'Bliss' explores the intense experience of joy in relation to beauty, and of joy and beauty in relation to cold hard reality.
Katherine Mansfield, who as a short-story writer has been compared to Chekhov, died at the age of 34 and does not seem to be as well recognised today as she fully deserves. Somehow the poignancy of her early death seems to be presaged in the numinous quality of these stories. There often seems to be a gently hovering question mark: it there a meta-narrative - some higher reality? But Mansfield's answer is to create a richer experience of the 'here and now' of her time.
If you like Penelope Lively or Tracy Chevalier, chances are you will love Katherine Mansfield's stories.
This is a collection of captivating short stories about life in the early 20th century. The author is a painter with words - she beautifully captures the colours, textures and atmosphere of the places and people she writes about, encapsulating a beauty and tranquillity that existed before the technological age; yet her stories are in no way sentimental. On the contrary, there is an edgy, almost surreal quality about them, and they seem to loiter at the fragile limits of concrete experience and human equanimity. They tap into real human feelings, never presuming to analyse fully, but only to understand with deep empathy the concerns, wishes, hopes and dreams that flow through our lives. Mansfield crafts each story with care - though seamlessly - and so each one satisfies the reader by having a theme, a development of it, and a resolution (even if this is an emotional state rather than a dramatic event). Finally, I wouldn't want you to assume that these stories are dreamy or passive. There are also some powerful and dramatic elements, so that reading them can be an emotionally intense experience. For example, 'The Little Governess' bowls you along unwittingly, in happy oblivion, until - but I wouldn't want to spoil it for you. The eponymous 'Bliss' explores the intense experience of joy in relation to beauty, and of joy and beauty in relation to cold hard reality.
Katherine Mansfield, who as a short-story writer has been compared to Chekhov, died at the age of 34 and does not seem to be as well recognised today as she fully deserves. Somehow the poignancy of her early death seems to be presaged in the numinous quality of these stories. There often seems to be a gently hovering question mark: it there a meta-narrative - some higher reality? But Mansfield's answer is to create a richer experience of the 'here and now' of her time.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
Having read about Katherine Mansfield in Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Marriages in Literary London 1910 -1939, I was intrigued to read some of her work. However, I really don't read short stories often and I was uncertain about where to begin. This small volume, containing only three of her stories, seemed a good place to start - allowing me to sample her style and see if I would want to read on. I don't think I was prepared for the sheer strength of these stories and the way they drew you in. There are only three stories in this collection: Bliss, The Daughters of the Late Colonel and The Doll's House. They are about simple, human emotions - the joy to be found in everyday life, betrayal, grief, relief, bullying and exclusion. Did I really imagine I would not want to read on? Katherine Mansfield, like the short story genre, may not be as widely read as they once were, but they certainly deserve to be. I am delighted to have discovered her and will certainly read more. I highly recommend this small volume and others in the Penguin Mini Modern Classics range - they are a great way of sampling authors you may have not read before and you may well find someone special, like Katherine Mansfield.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
"Bliss" may be one of the lesser known classics but it is without doubt a delightful read. The stories are character as opposed to plot-based and Mansfield deserves to be called a "master" of her genre. Her language is quite accessible. She creates a strong sense of place in each story yet excludes any unnecessary description from her work. My personal favourite story is "Psychology." Definitely a book I'll re-read.
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Fiction > Classics
- Books > Fiction > Contemporary Fiction
- Books > Fiction > Short Stories
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
