The Garden Party and Other Stories

But as soon as they flowered, they fell and were scattered. You brushed them off your frock as you talked; the horrid little things got caught in one's hair. Why, then, flower at all? Who takes the trouble - or the joy - to make all these things that are wasted, wasted... It was uncanny.

The 15 stories collected in this volume demonstrate the genius of a woman who, in her short life, was compared with Chekhov. These are not tales of violent incident or dexterous plot. They are sensitive revelations of human behaviour in quite ordinary situations. The men, women and especially the children, whom [the author] portrays in such delicate pastels, are involved in no sensational episodes, yet they are vividly true to life.</p><p>Claire Tomalin – 'Her territory was that of the fragile emotions, half-understood feelings, the fine edge between the ridiculous and the pathetic'</p><p>Elizabeth Bowen – 'She uses no literary shock tactics. The singular beauty of her language consists, partly, in its hardly seeming to be language at all, so glass-transparent is it to her meaning. Words had but one appeal for her, that of speakingness'