Introduction: The seventy-three short stories and fifteen unfinished fragments contained in this volume represent the whole range of Katherine Mansfield's writing. Contemporary critics compared her to Chekhov in her treatment of apparently trifling incidents and her symbolic use of objects to convey powerful atmosphere. These are not tales of violent emotions or dextrous plot: they are sensitive relavations of human behaviour in guite ordinary situations, through which we can glimpse a powerful, and sometimes cruelly pessimistic, view of the human lot.

Personen: Mansfield, Katherine