The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield — A Perfect Afternoon Shadowed by Tragedy
The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield — A Perfect Afternoon Shadowed by Tragedy  
Podcast: LitReading - Classic Short Stories and Timeless Tales
Published On: Mon Jul 06 2026
Description: A perfect summer morning, a lawn being readied for the most delightful garden party of the season, and a death just down the hill that no one quite knows what to do with. Katherine Mansfield’s 1922 masterpiece follows young Laura Sheridan as the giddy pleasures of her family’s wealth, a hat, a band, trays of lilies, run headlong into the reality of a working man killed in the lane below. Tender, ironic, and quietly devastating, “The Garden Party” is one of the great short stories of the twentieth century, and it ends on a sentence Laura cannot finish.“The Garden Party” was written by Katherine Mansfield and first published in 1922. If this reading stayed with you, please share Litreading with a fellow lover of fine stories and leave a five-star rating or review, it’s the simplest way to help the work reach new listeners. Discover our multiverse of short stories at shortstoryverses.com. Thanks for listening.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.