Christina Stead: A Biography [Paperback]

Hazel Rowley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1995

This critical biography of Australian novelist Christina Stead, drawing on her private correspondence and conversations with intimate friends, paints a picture of a passionate and intense woman for whom fame came too late in life, and sheds new light on the impulses behind her writing. It describes her tempestuous early years in parochial Sydney, her escape to London, the discovery of love with Bill Blake, Paris in the 1920s and the move to New York. After the war they returned to Europe but moved restlessly from place to place. Then, in 1965, "The Man Who Loved Children" was reissued, turning Stead into an international celebrity.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this eloquent, richly detailed biography, Christina Stead (1902-1983) emerges as a writer whose bristling, difficult fiction was fueled by a troubled life and touchwood temperament ("Every human being is a sort of monster, if you get to know them."). After leaving her native Australia and a divisive relationship with her brilliant father at age 26-reflected in her semiautobiographical novel The Man Who Loved Children, which she called "a Strindberg Family Robinson"-Stead led a peripatetic and sometimes impoverished life in Europe and America. Australia was slow to recognize her talent, and financial and critical support for her work eluded her elsewhere as well until late in life. Rowley, an Australian professor, points out that Stead's susceptibility to depression was assuaged by the devotion of her lover, Marxist historian and novelist William Blech. His forbearance with a hugely talented, intemperate and imperious figure is paralleled by Rowley's incisive, sympathetic prose. Photos.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Even if you've never heard of Australian writer Stead (The Man Who Loved Children, 1940; The Salzburg Tales, 1934), reading Rowley's biography will sweep you into Stead's life and make you want to read her work. Born in 1902 in Australia, Stead lived most of her adult life in Europe and the United States. She lived in London and Paris in the 1920s and 1930s, emigrated to the United States during the war years, and returned to Europe during the McCarthy era. For over 40 years, Stead's life and travels were guided by her companion, Bill Blake, a Marxist, financier, and writer. After the brief good fortune of the prewar years, Stead and Blake spent years in poverty, until Stead's work was reprinted and reassessed in the 1960s. This book is, above all else, a writer's life. Rowley does not portray Stead as a pleasant or noble person, but she does let us see Stead's passion and dedication to her muse. The biography is thoroughly researched and lovingly detailed. Recommended for public library literature collections.
Denise Johnson, Bradley Univ. Lib., Peoria, Ill.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co (P) (October 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805042628
• ISBN-13: 978-0805042627
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,844,456 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Hazel Rowley, brought up in England and Australia, lives in New York City. Her new book, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: An Extraordinary Marriage, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, was named among the 2010 TEN BEST BOOKS (Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air, NPR).

Rowley moved to Paris for two years to write Tête-à-Tête: Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre (Harper Collins, 2005). A Washington Post Best Book for 2005, the book has been translated into thirteen languages. In Brazil it was a bestseller, and in France the prestigious literary magazine Lire named it "the best literary biography of 2006."

Rowley wrote Richard Wright: The Life and Times (Henry Holt, 2001) while she was affiliated with the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro American Studies at Harvard. The book had cover reviews in the New York Times and Washington Post and was listed among the 2001 Washington Post Book World Raves. It was re-issued by Chicago University Press in 2008.

Christina Stead: A Biography (Heinemann, 1993) won Australia's most prestigious prize, the National Book Award for Nonfiction. Published in the US by Henry Holt and in the UK by Secker & Warburg, it received glowing reviews from the likes of Doris Lessing, James Wood, and Lorna Sage (TLS),and was named as a New York Times Notable Book. It was re-issued in 2007 by Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, Australia.

Hazel Rowley has appeared four times in The Best Australian Essays. She has published articles in Partisan Review, Mississippi Quarterly, Antioch Review, Contemporary Literature, Prose Studies, Auto/Biography Studies, Texas Studies in Literature and Language, Southerly and Westerly, and reviews books for The Times Literary Supplement, The London Times Higher Education Supplement, Boston Globe, Washington Post, The Nation, and L.A. Times.

A passionate speaker, she has appeared at numerous book festivals and literary events in the US, Canada, UK, France, and Australia.