Katherine Mansfield accomplishes an incredible drama with detailed characterization in "Miss Brill", a story only four pages long, written in the early 1920's. The main character is a lonely spinster, probably an elderly Englishwoman, living in a resort area of France near the seashore, earning enough to support herself by tutoring English children and reading the newspapers to an old invalid whose ability to hear and comprehend are questionable. She sits on a bench at the park and creates fantasy scenarios involving the people around her, enhanced by her eavesdropping skills.

One of Katherine Mansfield's finest short stories, "Bliss" introduces us to Bertha, who experiences a sense of rapture as she reflects on her life. On her walk home one day, she is overwhelmed by a sense of bliss and contentment. However, her joy later turns to disappointment as she discovers her husband is having an affair with her new friend Pearl.

Katherine Mansfield was a master of the short story. With characters in psychological struggles resulting in a major life shift or revelation, her style influenced contemporary and friend Virginia Woolf as well as modern authors including Alice Munro. These stories were written between 1920 and 1921, while she was ill with tuberculosis. She died in 1923 at the age of 34. Fifteen stories are included in this recording.

This is a story from the Classic Women's Short Stories collection.

Philip Carey, a sensitive orphan born with a clubfoot, finds himself in desperate need of passion and inspiration. He abandons his studies to travel, first to Heidelberg and then to Paris, where he nurses ambitions of becoming a great artist. Philip's youthful idealism erodes, however, as he comes face-to-face with his own mediocrity and lack of impact on the world. After returning to London to study medicine, he becomes wildly infatuated with Mildred, a vulgar, tawdry waitress, and begins a doomed love affair.

Between the Acts is often an overlooked work in her oeuvre because she did express her intention to revise it before publication, though in the event this never happened. So it comes as a surprise to find that, while it probably would have benefited from revision, it is something of an unpolished gem, at times sparkling and actually very engaging. The writing is subtle, varied in tone and purpose; at times serious and complex and at others lighthearted and even downright funny. And unpredictable.

First published in three volumes in 1860 it tells the story of Tom and Maggie Tulliver, a brother and sister growing up on the river Floss. Maggie is deeply attached to her brother but their conflicting temperaments and outlook produce only stress and misunderstanding until they are finally reconciled in a moment of revelation before tragedy overtakes them.

When the kids are grown and Mercy Garrett gradually moves herself out of the family home, everyone determines not to notice. Over at her studio, she wants space and silence. She won't allow any family clutter. Not even their cat, Desmond. Yet it is a clutter of untidy moments that forms the Garretts' family life over the decades, from giving a child a ride to a painstaking Easter lunch, a fateful train journey to an unexpected homecoming. And it all begins in 1959, with a family holiday to a cabin by a lake.

When the mysterious Green Knight arrives unbidden at the Round Table one Christmas, only Gawain is brave enough to take up his challenge.... This story, first told in the 1400s, is one of the most enthralling, dramatic and beloved poems in the English tradition. Now, in Simon Armitage, the poem has found its perfect modern translator. Armitage's retelling of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight captures all of the magic and wonderful storytelling of the original while also revitalising it.

They lived worlds apart. Jenny was the girl from the cat-meat shop, born into squalor and defeat. Paul Tunsatall was a soldier and a gentleman, arrogant and charming with his silver-light eyes and boyish smile. And yet from the moment they met there was a spark between them.

A rather mysterious old clergyman is dead, and his daughter, 16-year-old Athene is desolate. A beauty, she is also lonely and living a fantasy life. Athene’s mother dispatches her to spend the holidays with assorted friends and relatives. And for Athene that golden summer after the funeral becomes delicious fodder for her fantasy.

It is 1940, and Guy and Harriet Pringle and their friends in the English colony in Bucharest find their position growing ever more precarious. The phony war is over and invasion by the Germans is an ever-present threat... This is the second part of The Balkan Trilogy, which began with The Great Fortune and concludes with Friends and Heroes.

Joyce's first major work, written when he was only 25, brought his city to the world for the first time. His stories are rooted in the rich detail of Dublin life, portraying ordinary, often defeated lives with unflinching realism. He writes of social decline, sexual desire and exploitation, corruption and personal failure, yet creates a brilliantly compelling, unique vision of the world and of human experience. 

Late summer near Dublin, 1920, and up at the great house there are still cucumber sandwiches for tea. Slipping away from Aunt Mary and dotty Grandfather, 18-year-old Nancy has escaped down to the shore to dream in the beach hut - longing for her life to begin.

It is 1998, the year in which America is whipped into a frenzy of prurience by the impeachment of a president, and in a small New England town, an aging classics professor, Coleman Silk, is forced to retire when his colleagues decree that he is a racist. The charge is a lie, but the real truth about Silk would have astonished even his most virulent accuser.