For Love Alone - Christina Stead
Imprint Classics ISBN 1 875892 59 1
AU$16.95

Christina Stead is regarded, along with Patrick White, as one of the two most important writers Australia has produced. Born in 1902, Stead spent her formative years here, leaving in 1928 and returning in 1974 to live out her last nine years. In the time between she lived and traveled widely in Europe and America, with her husband, the novelist and political economist, William Blake, and it was during these decades that she wrote the series of novels that were to make her name.

First published in 1945, this edition is introduced by Peter Craven. Against a background of two cities, Sydney and London, For Love Alone tells the story of the passionate and independent Teresa Hawkins, who knows only one commandment - Thou Shalt Love. Obsessed by love and a sense of her own destiny, Teresa turns her back on suburban Sydney and sets off for London, pursuing the self-seeking and contemptuous Jonathon Crow. "Any man who has ever toyed with the affections of a girl who was his superior will wince at the scalpel-like treatment of male vanity." The fictional character of Teresa has its origin in Stead's own early womanhood.

It is also a novel about being an Australian colonial with a sense of the weight of culture.

Seven Poor Men of Sydney - Christina Stead
Imprint Classics ISBN 1 875892 60 5
AU$16.95

Here is Stead's first novel, originally published in 1934. Poetic and impressionistic, the seven men of the title are held together by bonds of friendship, love, poverty and the tenuous associations of their city - in this case Sydney, Australia. The characters' inner landscapes are as tangible as the city while the narrative explores the material and spiritual aspects of being in some sense 'poor', while the novel examines how the inescapable physical facts and remoteness of Australia from Europe affect the cultural and political development of its inhabitants. With an evocative introduction by Professor Margaret Harris, Stead's literary executor.

Letty Fox etc - Stead

Salzburg Tales - Stead