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y separately published work icon The Puzzleheaded Girl : Four Novellas selected work   novella  
Issue Details: First known date: 1967... 1967 The Puzzleheaded Girl : Four Novellas
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'In The Puzzleheaded Girl, made up of four thematically linked novellas, Stead’s unsurpassable skills of observation and social critique are on full display. ...' (Source: Tet Publishing website)

Contents

* Contents derived from the London,
c
England,
c
c
United Kingdom (UK),
c
Western Europe, Europe,:Secker and Warburg , 1968 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
The Puzzleheaded Girl, Christina Stead , single work novella (p. 9-67)
The Huntress The Dianas, Christina Stead , single work novella (p. 69-112)
The Rightangled Creek : A Sort of Ghost Story, Christina Stead , single work novella (p. 113-180)
Girl from the Beach, Christina Stead , single work novella (p. 181-285)
VIEW ENTIRE CONTENTS ( works)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,      :
      c
      Canada,
      c
      Americas,      :       Holt, Rinehart and Winston ,       1967 .
      Extent: 255p.
      Edition info: 1st. ed.
      Note/s:
      • Dedication: To my friends Jessie and Ettore Rella
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,      :       Virago ,       1984 .
      Extent: xv, 285p.p.
      Edition info: Reprinted from English first edition.
      Note/s:
      • Introduction by Angela Carter.
      ISBN: 860681785(pbk)
    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Text Publishing , 2016 .
      image of person or book cover 2359307634630503343.jpg
      This image has been sourced from Text Publishing website
      Extent: 304p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 3 October 2016
      ISBN: 9781925355710 (pbk)
      Series: y separately published work icon Text Classics Text Publishing (publisher), Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2012- Z1851461 2012 series - publisher novel 'Great books by great Australian storytellers.' (Text website.)
VIEW PUBLICATION DETAILS FOR ALL VERSIONS ()

Works about this Work

Christina Stead : Her Luck Ann-Marie Priest , 2013 single work essay
— Appears in: Meanjin , Spring vol. 72 no. 3 2013; (p. 66-78)
y separately published work icon The Enigmatic Christina Stead : A Provocative Re-Reading Teresa Petersen , Carlton South : Melbourne University Press , 2001 Z795705 2001 single work criticism
y separately published work icon Christina Stead : A Biography Hazel Rowley , Port Melbourne : Heinemann , 1993 Z202981 1993 single work biography

'Like the author herself, Christina Stead’s novels were challenging and engrossing. Raised by a narcissistic father, Stead left for London at the age of twenty-six and soon met William Blake, a writer, broker, and Marxist political economist who became her life partner. His personal ambitions and their politics resulted in a nomadic existence, with Stead sidestepping the traditional feminine role in exchange for a career. She struggled to find an audience for her work, however, only succeeding late in life with the reissue of The Man Who Loved Children. Hazel Rowley’s richly detailed and even-handed biography spans Stead’s life, expertly blending her encoded personal papers with interviews of her closest confidants. Masterfully written and researched, Christina Stead is a fascinating chronicle of one of the twentieth century’s greatest novelists.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Open Road ed.)
y separately published work icon Christina Stead: The American Years Anita Kristina Segerberg , 1990 Z67027 1990 single work thesis
Christina Stead's "The Puzzleheaded Girl" : The Political Context Michael Wilding , 1989 single work criticism
— Appears in: Words and Wordsmiths : A Volume for H.L. Rogers 1989; (p. 147-173) Studies in Classic Australian Fiction 1997; (p. 187-220) 'The fiction of Christina Stead (1902-83) is at last receiving something of its proper recognition after years of critical neglect, ascribed variously to her gender,232 to her expatriate status (born in Australia and spending her creative life in Europe and America),233 and to her left-wing politics.234 Her work is now being brought back into view within the general reappraisal of women writers and the extending of the canon of Australian literature. This essay explores her political vision with an examination of her volume of four novellas, The Puzzleheaded Girl (1968). The collection of novellas, even more than the volume of stories, is most publishers' least favourite form. It has proved similarly unattractive to critical commentary. Yet so many fiction writers have felt most at their ease in the novella, enjoying the space for amplification denied in the short story and free from the necessity of the ramifications of complex plotting and narrative expected in the novel. The novellas in The Puzzleheaded Girl work not by conventional plot but by the great monologues her characters deliver and the obliquely realized compulsive, seemingly unwilled and unmotivated entanglements in which they live. Stead catches most remarkably the way people talk, and the way, talking, they reveal themselves, their sexual and political involvements and obsessions - though the characters themselves could never recognize them as obsessions. The world of intellectual, radical, fringe bohemian groups during the late 1940s and the McCarthyite period and its aftermath is effortlessly documented. None of the actions has that neat Jamesian form, but instead a succession of seemingly inconsequential events. It seems sometimes as if Christina Stead is writing a variation on or descant to material a more mundane writer would have treated naturalistically; though we could never reconstruct those Ur-novellas. It is a manner that leads to a remarkable concision, an elliptical compression, resulting in a solidity and fullness free from any ponderousness: and from the elisions and ellipses retaining a powerful energy that imprints these stories on the memory.'  (Introduction)
[Review] Charco Harbour [and] The Puzzleheaded Girl [and] The Chantic Bird Robert Ward , 1968 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , June vol. 7 no. 8 1968; (p. 143)
— Review of Charco Harbour : A Novel of Unknown Seas and a Fabled Shore Passaged with Coral Reefs and Magnetical Islands, of Shipwreck and a Lonely Haven -- the True Story of the Last of the Great Navigators, His Bark and the Men in Her Godfrey Blunden , 1968 single work novel ; The Puzzleheaded Girl : Four Novellas Christina Stead , 1967 selected work novella ; The Chantic Bird David Ireland , 1968 single work novel
Short Story Chronicle Michael Wilding , 1971 single work review
— Appears in: Meanjin Quarterly , Winter vol. 30 no. 2 1971; (p. 255, 257, 259, 261, 263, 265, 267)
— Review of Coast to Coast : Australian Stories 1969-1970 1970 periodical issue short story ; Coast to Coast : Australian Stories 1967-68 1968 periodical issue short story ; Selected Stories 1936-1968 Dal Stivens , 1969 selected work short story ; The Puzzleheaded Girl : Four Novellas Christina Stead , 1967 selected work novella ; Futility and Other Animals Frank Moorhouse , 1969 selected work short story ; Disquiet and Other Stories Manning Clark , 1969 selected work short story ; Mr Butterfry and Other Tales of New Japan Hal Porter , 1970 selected work short story
[Review] The Puzzleheaded Girl P. MacManus , 1967 single work review
— Appears in: Saturday Review , 14 October 1967; (p. 34,99-100)
— Review of The Puzzleheaded Girl : Four Novellas Christina Stead , 1967 selected work novella
[Review] The Puzzleheaded Girl A. Morris , 1967 single work review
— Appears in: The New York Times Book Review , 10 December 1967; (p. 54)
— Review of The Puzzleheaded Girl : Four Novellas Christina Stead , 1967 selected work novella
[Review] The Puzzleheaded Girl R. Sale , 1967 single work review
— Appears in: The Hudson Review , Winter vol. 20 no. 4 1967-1968; (p. 666-674)
— Review of The Puzzleheaded Girl : Four Novellas Christina Stead , 1967 selected work novella
y separately published work icon Christina Stead: The American Years Anita Kristina Segerberg , 1990 Z67027 1990 single work thesis
y separately published work icon Christina Stead : A Biography Hazel Rowley , Port Melbourne : Heinemann , 1993 Z202981 1993 single work biography

'Like the author herself, Christina Stead’s novels were challenging and engrossing. Raised by a narcissistic father, Stead left for London at the age of twenty-six and soon met William Blake, a writer, broker, and Marxist political economist who became her life partner. His personal ambitions and their politics resulted in a nomadic existence, with Stead sidestepping the traditional feminine role in exchange for a career. She struggled to find an audience for her work, however, only succeeding late in life with the reissue of The Man Who Loved Children. Hazel Rowley’s richly detailed and even-handed biography spans Stead’s life, expertly blending her encoded personal papers with interviews of her closest confidants. Masterfully written and researched, Christina Stead is a fascinating chronicle of one of the twentieth century’s greatest novelists.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Open Road ed.)
Christina Stead's "The Puzzleheaded Girl" : The Political Context Michael Wilding , 1989 single work criticism
— Appears in: Words and Wordsmiths : A Volume for H.L. Rogers 1989; (p. 147-173) Studies in Classic Australian Fiction 1997; (p. 187-220) 'The fiction of Christina Stead (1902-83) is at last receiving something of its proper recognition after years of critical neglect, ascribed variously to her gender,232 to her expatriate status (born in Australia and spending her creative life in Europe and America),233 and to her left-wing politics.234 Her work is now being brought back into view within the general reappraisal of women writers and the extending of the canon of Australian literature. This essay explores her political vision with an examination of her volume of four novellas, The Puzzleheaded Girl (1968). The collection of novellas, even more than the volume of stories, is most publishers' least favourite form. It has proved similarly unattractive to critical commentary. Yet so many fiction writers have felt most at their ease in the novella, enjoying the space for amplification denied in the short story and free from the necessity of the ramifications of complex plotting and narrative expected in the novel. The novellas in The Puzzleheaded Girl work not by conventional plot but by the great monologues her characters deliver and the obliquely realized compulsive, seemingly unwilled and unmotivated entanglements in which they live. Stead catches most remarkably the way people talk, and the way, talking, they reveal themselves, their sexual and political involvements and obsessions - though the characters themselves could never recognize them as obsessions. The world of intellectual, radical, fringe bohemian groups during the late 1940s and the McCarthyite period and its aftermath is effortlessly documented. None of the actions has that neat Jamesian form, but instead a succession of seemingly inconsequential events. It seems sometimes as if Christina Stead is writing a variation on or descant to material a more mundane writer would have treated naturalistically; though we could never reconstruct those Ur-novellas. It is a manner that leads to a remarkable concision, an elliptical compression, resulting in a solidity and fullness free from any ponderousness: and from the elisions and ellipses retaining a powerful energy that imprints these stories on the memory.'  (Introduction)
Christina Stead in the 1960s R. G. Geering , 1968 single work criticism biography
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 28 no. 1 1968; (p. 26-36)
y separately published work icon The Enigmatic Christina Stead : A Provocative Re-Reading Teresa Petersen , Carlton South : Melbourne University Press , 2001 Z795705 2001 single work criticism
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Last amended 3 Jan 2017 09:19:45
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