The Canary by Katherine Mansfield — A Calming Bedtime Story for Sleep & Insomnia | Books at Bedtime
If sleep feels far away tonight, let Katherine Mansfield's The Canary carry you gently there. Tonight's Books at Bedtime sleep story is a quiet, tender monologue: a lonely woman remembers the pet canary who once filled her home with song, and the small, aching space he left behind, read slowly to ease you toward sleep.
This is a Calming Anxiety production, read by host Martin Hewlett as part of our nightly Books at Bedtime and Coffee Break for the Soul series of classic short story readings for insomnia relief and relaxation.
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First published in April 1923 in The Nation and Athenaeum and later collected in The Dove's Nest and Other Stories, The Canary was the last short story Katherine Mansfield ever completed and is now in the public domain in the US. If you enjoyed our earlier readings of Miss Brill and The Singing Lesson, this gentle, wistful story is another beautiful Mansfield sleep story to drift off to.
Let this quiet story of love and loss settle slowly around you as a calming audiobook for bedtime, and let your own thoughts soften into sleep. If you enjoyed this reading, explore more relaxing sleep stories and classic audiobooks in our Books at Bedtime and Coffee Break for the Soul archive, available wherever you listen to Calming Anxiety.
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