The Garden Party

By: Katherine Mansfield

Narrated by: Dame Peggy Ashcroft

Length: 1 hr and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

This recording contains four of Katherine Mansfield's best stories. In The Daughters of the Late Colonel, two sisters are recently bereaved; while in Her First Ball a young girl attends her first dance. The Singing Lesson features Miss Meadows, a music teacher in turmoil; and in The Stranger, a middle-aged couple are reunited.

©1922 Katherine Mansfield (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

Not the full collection

The Garden Party story collection this is not. The title story is not in it. It is four stories from the larger collection, but not titled as Abridged. But the narration was good, the Kathryn Mansfield stories are excellent, and it was free with my membership, so 3 stars.

No Garden Party, But Still Great

Strangely enough, this collection, entitled “The Garden Party,” does not contain the titular story. However, the stories it does have are marvelous.

Not very interesting

Didn’t read synopsis before listening while working in the kitchen. For a change, housework was more interesting than the book. Didn’t realize until halfway through that the story didn’t make any sense—because it wasn’t one story, but a collection. I kept waiting for the two batty sisters to come back and find out they had killed their father or something. There is no break between stores or announcements of the new title to tell you that you have moved on to a new story. You have to pay more attention than I did to know what’s going on, but nothing in the stories caught my attention, so it was rather pointless.

delightful classic

Delightful stories told from the rich and poor point of views. one of the Classics that must be read

Rather Disjointed

This was free, good thing! Did not enjoy listening to it, listened while working and that is the only reason I didn't turn it off prematurely, but it was rather disjointed. No cohesion what-so-ever to the stories, with the exception being that they were all bad, that was the only cohesive element, I'm returning it.

Gretchen

Terrible sound quality. Hurt my ears so badly I could only stand about 5 seconds. Please re-record. I would love to listen to it!

Missing Garden Party

I don't know why this is entitled The Garden Party, as it doesn't contain that particular story. It apparently contains The Daughters of the Late Colonel, Her First Ball, The Singing Lesson, and The Stranger. I was interested in this because of the narrator but I particularly wanted to listen to The Garden Party, and was confused for over an hour (there was no garden party), so a little Net research told me I was listening to The Daughters and the Late Colonel and that The Garden Party has completely different characters and subject matter. The title is (apparently) intentionally deceptive, and though I like the narrator and would have been interested if this included The Garden Party, I decided to return this book to Audible and not to reward the publishers' trickery.