At the Bay

About At the Bay

A brilliant modernist classic–now available for the first time in a stand-alone edition

This dreamy, formally audacious story of a summer’s day in the life of one family is a small masterpiece by Katherine Mansfield, hailed as “one of the great modernist writers. Virginia Woolf said of Mansfield, hers was “the only writing I have ever been jealous of.”

A modernist master of cool precision and extraordinary delicacy, Mansfield wrote about family life with a sharp radicalism, and At the Bay is one of her greatest works. Told in thirteen parts, beginning early in the morning and ending at dusk, At the Bay captures both the Burnell family’s intricate web of relatives and friends, and the dreamy, unassuming natural beauty of Crescent Bay.

Haunting but ever understated, At the Bay is as timeless novella, and a testament to Mansfield’s remarkable powers.