Christina Stead (1902-1983) is arguably Australia's greatest female novelist. After graduating from Sydney Teachers' College in 1921, Christina taught for some years and left Australia in 1928 'to satisfy a wandering impulse'. She met her husband, William Blake, in London, and they moved to Paris in 1929. Her first novel, The Salzburg Tales, appeared in 1934, followed the same year by Seven Poor Men of Sydney. Her third book, The Beauties and The Furies, appeared in 1936 and House of All Nations in 1938. From 1937-1947 the Blakes lived in the USA. Three more novels appeared before her most famous work, The Man Who Loved Children - an acknowledged masterpiece of twentieth-century fiction - was published in 1940. Stead's concentrated emotional intensity, her interest in extraordinary passion, and her keen sense of fantasy and the grotesque have led to comparisons with D. H. Lawrence, Dostoevsky and Dickens. Immediately striking are her strong imaginative power and range, her verbal brilliance and her acute penetration of character. In this remarkable work, Teresa Petersen seeks to unravel an interesting, hitherto unexamined enigma presented by Christina Stead in her fiction. Overtly, Stead posits a heterosexual norm as the paradigm par excellence. Yet she portrays no happy heterosexual relationships or marriages, only miserable compromises. Covertly, on the other hand, lesbianism looms large in Stead's fiction, although usually shrouded in silence, imperceptibly surfacing and disappearing, sliding in and out of the narrative. Petersen argues that although Stead's texts are saturated with a heterosexual norm, it is a facade that masks both lesbianism and male homosexual desire.

Welcome to BookCrossing :-)

If you find this book, and are not familiar with BookCrossing, thanks for checking the site out. Welcome! Enjoy both the book and the site.

I hope you'll journal this book (you may remain anonymous), and maybe even join up (it doesn't cost anything to join).

People all over the world are tracking their books through BookCrossing.

If you do decide to become a BookCrosser, please consider using me, Woosang, as the member who referred you.

If you are already familiar with BookCrossing, thanks for picking up the book.

Either way, I hope you'll make a journal entry so all previous and future readers can track this book's journey. Happy reading and Happy Crossing!

RELEASE NOTES:

Belconnen Lifeline Fair

RELEASE NOTES:

Left in a release bag in a tree. I never read this book - it's been sitting in a box in my study since the Belconnen Community Fair some time ago. Hope it intrigues someone and finds a new home!