Bliss and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield (Audrey App)
Loved by Ali Smith and envied by Virginia Woolf, in her short life, Katherine Mansfield wrote many stories that would end up among the most important works of modernist and feminist literature. In these innovative and captivating short stories, you’ll find a housewife’s sexual and emotional awakening, an actress’s desperate search for work, and other vivid moments crafted in fine detail and sharply-drawn characters.
Audrey Guide, Sophie Corser, is an academic and researcher of modern and contemporary women’s writing. In the guide to Bliss and Other Stories, she shares juicy facts about Mansfield’s own short but productive life, literary insights into the short story form, discussion questions provoked by the stories, beautiful images and, as in all Audrey guides, a brilliant playlist.
With hand-drawn illustrations by Rosie Leech.
About the author
Kathleen Mansfield Murry (née Beauchamp; 14 October 1888 – 9 January 1923) was a New Zealand writer, essayist and journalist, widely considered one of the most influential and important authors of the modernist movement. Her works are celebrated across the world, and have been published in 25 languages.
About the Audrey app.
We have developed the Audrey app, where we curate classic and contemporary audiobooks and pair them with a guide, who helps the listener engage with the book in a more meaningful way. The guide provides insights, context, information about the author, photos of the real places in the book, thought-provoking questions, a playlist and more. We also commission bespoke illustrations, and each book comes with chapter recaps and character descriptions to help readers who may get easily distracted.
Review
I thoroughly enjoyed ‘Bliss and Other Stories’ by Katherine Mansfield so much that when I found a folio society edition of the book I bought it instantly! I am one of those people who sometimes like to listen to audiobooks whilst also reading the text and I can already tell you I will be returning to this book to do exactly this with the Audrey app.
The Audrey app is an immersive reading experience and the bit that I love is when the guide takes you through the stories and gives you the background to them. Below is a short video of what this looks like.
The guide for these stories was Sophie Corser and she was an informative and engaging host. I found that this time round, the guide was taking down us down a more academic route when telling us about these magnificent short stories and I adored that. It felt like you were with your favourite teacher who was imparting nuggets of wisdom! Sophie is a researcher and academic who studies modern and contemporary literature and this definitely shows with their excellent commentary.
Once again the team at Audrey has done a fantastic job with this book. I love how informative and immersive this reading experience is and I feel you get so much more out of using this app than you do with a normal audiobook. I am one of those readers that ends up going down google rabbit holes when they are reading and I'm finding that the Audrey app has already kick-started that process and widened the horizon for what I would be searching for. In this case, it has been the inclusion of the BBC Great Lives podcast which I ended up devouring!
I loved all the stories but I was particularly enamoured with ‘The Little Governess’ as the naivety of the main character resonnated to me. I would be that person who utterly would have been taken in by the German traveller! My second favourite was ‘The Dill Pickle’ as who hasn't run into an ex-partner and realised that they are still an idiot! I love reading short stories as the writers have to be so precise with what they are putting down on paper as you can not include waffle or padding out. Katherine Mansfield is a brilliant writer whom I had previously not been aware of but is now someone whose work I will cherish.
I truly have no qualms about recommending these short stories and using the Audrey app to do so! Let me know if you do.
