Physical description

Hard cover book. Bliss & Other Stories
Author: Katherine Mansfield
Publisher: Constable & Co Ltd
Date: 1928
Further Information: Light blue Cloth hardcover with lettering and patterning to spine in gilt. The spine has a Library label with an inscription.

Publication type

fiction

Inscriptions & markings

The label on the spine with typed text PAT FIC MAN
Front loose end paper has a sticker from Warrnambool Public Library covered by a sticker from Corangamite Regional Library Service

Summary

Bliss and Other Stories is Katherine Mansfield's second published collection; the first edition was released in 1920. It gathers stories she wrote between 1916 and 1919, including 'Prelude', a vivid, impressionistic portrait of her New Zealand childhood and family, 'Je ne parle pas Français', a sardonic look at bohemian Parisian life, as well as 'Bliss', the title story about Bertha Young, a 30-year-old wife and mother who feels an overwhelming, inexplicable joy, only to discover at her dinner party that her husband is having an affair with Pearl Fulton, a woman Bertha herself is drawn to. Other Katherine Mansfield works include 'The Man without a Temperament', 'Pictures', 'Psychology', 'A Dill Pickle', 'The Little Governess', 'Revelations', 'The Escape', and others. The main themes of these stories are that they explore repressed sexuality, alienation, the fragility of domestic happiness, and the gap between social performance and inner life. Mansfield uses stream-of-consciousness, symbolic imagery notably the pear tree in the story 'Bliss' and what critics call 'moments of being', or sudden flashes of psychological truth.