Christina Stead

Christina Stead 1902-83, Australian novelist, b. Rockdale, New South Wales. She worked in the United States in the 1940s, emigrated to England in 1953, then returned to Australia in 1974. Her novels, written in the distinctive language of the interior monologist, treat the problem of evil, particularly the destruction wrought by human obsessions. In addition to The Man Who Loved Children (1940), her masterpiece, her novels include Seven Poor Men of Sydney (1934), the autobiographical For Love Alone (1944), A Little Tea, A Little Chat (1948), The Little Hotel (1975) Miss Herbert (The Suburban Wife) (1976), and the posthumous I'm Dying Laughing (1987). Stead also wrote novellas, short stories, and essays.

Bibliography: See Christina Stead: A Biography (1994) by H. Rowley; studies by J. Lidoff (1982), D. Brydon (1987), and S. Sheridan (1988).

Stead, Christina (Ellen) (1902–83), Australian novelist, came to London in 1928 and subsequently worked and travelled in Europe and America, returning to Australia in 1968. Her wandering life and her left-wing views may have contributed to the neglect of her work, which towards the end of her life received renewed attention and admiration. Her first collection of stories, The Salzbury Tales (1934), was followed by several full-length novels, which include her best-known work, The Man Who Loved Children (1940), a bitterly ironic view of American family life and conflict; For Love Alone (1945), Letty Fox: Her Luck (1946), and Cotter's England (1967), which presents a vivid portrait of post-war working-class Britain, centred on the extraordinary personality of chain-smoking, emotional, destructive Nellie Cook, née Cotter, a journalist working on a left-wing London paper.