Description
Our box Summer Stories contains four heartening short stories by some of literature’s most beloved authors. Discover tales of love and joy, festivities and sorrow, interwoven with valuable lessons – all against the backdrop of glistening summer greenery.
This box includes four books:
Virginia Woolf – Kew Gardens
Kew Gardens encapsulates the flair of modernism and Woolf’s pioneering literary style. Set in the titular botanical garden in south-west London on a warm summer day, the story is a collection of glimpses into the lives of four groups of visitors. Told in intricate and lavish detail by an unnamed narrator, the story has no unifying narrative. Rather, it follows the visitors as they meander past a lustrous bed of flowers – giving a fleeting snippet of their lives: their memories, associations and reflections, all spurred by the sprawling greenery.
James Joyce – The Boarding House
Mrs. Mooney escapes her abusive husband and establishes a successful boarding house in Dublin. There she goes by the moniker “The Madam” and oversees a diverse array of guests, including office workers, tourists and musicians, with a firm yet steady hand. Among the boarders is Mr. Doran, who succumbs to temptation and becomes romantically involved with Mrs. Mooney’s daughter, Polly. As societal pressures loom over their relationship, the question arises if marriage is the only viable path in 20th-century Dublin. The affair reaches a decisive turning point on a scorching summer day.
Through The Boarding House, James Joyce offers a glimpse into a time where marriage is defined more by duty and societal norms than by love and affection.
Edith Wharton – The Quicksand
New York at the turn of the century. In The Quicksand, Edith Wharton, author of the novel The Age of Innocence, gives us a glimpse of the aristocratic Manhattan of the time. Unfolding on a pre-summer day at the Upper East Side’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, this multi-layered short story brings unexpected twists and ironic consequences in a triangle drama between a distinguished mother, her passionate son, and his free-thinking lover.
Katherine Mansfield – The Garden Party
First published in 1922, The Garden Party is a treasured short story by one of the prime innovators of the genre. Basking in the perfection of a splendid summer day, the prosperous Sheridan family is set to host a garden party at their estate. Amid the arrangements, a worker unexpectedly dies. Yet the family refuses to cancel the party, despite the youngest daughter, Laura’s, remonstrations. Strong emotions bubble to the surface when her mother insists that she should be the one to deliver a basket of leftovers to the grieving family as a gesture of sympathy.
