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y separately published work icon The Girl Green as Elderflower single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 1980... 1980 The Girl Green as Elderflower
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Crispin Clare returns to his ancestral home in Suffolk to recover from a tropical disease he contracted while working in the Pacific. His life is now one of quiet mornings and peaceful afternoons spent in the garden. Suffering physically and psychologically, Clare turns to writing as a source of therapy. Intrigued by the local folklore he re-examines his life and the world around him through myth and legend. Ouija-board conversations, illness-induced fever dreams and strange voices in his head blur the lines between reality and these mythic tales. Clare's road to recovery is full of twists and turns. Weaving old-English legends with contemporary fables, Stow creates an imaginative landscape unlike any other. The Girl Green as Elderflower is an exceptional story of loss and exile.'(Publication summary)

Notes

  • Dedication: To C. in Suffolk

    Even such midnight years must ebb; bequeathing this: a dim low English room, one window on the fields.

    Cloddish ancestral ghosts plod in the drowning mist Black coral elms play host to hosts of shrill black fish.

    My mare turns back her ears and hears the land she leaves as grievous music. 'Outrider' (1960)

Contents

* Contents derived from the Melbourne, Victoria,:Text Publishing , 2015 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
Introduction, Kerryn Goldsworthy , single work criticism

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Secker and Warburg ,
      1980 .
      image of person or book cover 4165865564648708812.png
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 150p.
      ISBN: 043649731X
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Viking ,
      1980 .
      image of person or book cover 8258774950776284645.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 149p.
      Note/s:
      • First American edition.
      ISBN: 067034091X
    • Port Melbourne, South Melbourne - Port Melbourne area, Melbourne - Inner South, Melbourne, Victoria,: Minerva , 1991 .
      image of person or book cover 8903477818042880129.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      ISBN: 0749391863 (pbk)
    • St Lucia, Indooroopilly - St Lucia area, Brisbane - North West, Brisbane, Queensland,: University of Queensland Press , 2003 .
      image of person or book cover 6769973400330762689.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: x, 159p.p.
      Note/s:
      • Foreword by Anthony J. Hassall (vii-x).
      ISBN: 0702233668
    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Text Publishing , 2015 .
      image of person or book cover 1167122107781861137.jpg
      Cover image courtesy of publisher.
      Extent: 208p.
      Note/s:
      • Publication date: 26 August 2015
      ISBN: 9781925240283
      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.)

Other Formats

  • Braille.
  • Sound recording.

Works about this Work

Autobiography of a Sickness Andrew Sutherland , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: Westerly , vol. 68 no. 1 2023; (p. 128-139)
'A disclosure: before being asked to do this lecture, I had never read a word of Stow. When I was nineteen, I left Western Australia to study in Singapore. When I graduated, I stayed. If leaving was an intentional turning away from a cultural lineage, or canon, then staying was a decisive choice towards another. Reading, after all, is political—more political, perhaps, than writing itself. Later, when I did return, and began to write, it was the Queer Singaporean and Singapore-based writers and artists I had encountered who formed my creative ancestry and who I felt I might exist in conversation with, if I were to exist in this space at all. But any residence forms lineages, and in returning to live on this land—where I hold legal citizenship, enforced by the world's dependence on borders and the nation-state, and where I was born—authorial ancestries are free to entangle, be speculated over and perhaps even transformed.' (Introduction)
 
Telling Spaces: Reading Randolph Stow’s Expatriation Kate Noske , 2019 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 19 no. 1 2019;

'Randolph Stow’s expatriate novels, Visitants (1979), The Girl Green as Elderflower (1980) and The Suburbs of Hell (1984) are often read as emerging from specific experiences in Stow’s expatriate life, beyond Australia—the two former as his ‘fever’ novels, informed by his work and illness in the Trobriand Islands and subsequent recovery in England; and the latter carrying the experience of an event from Stow’s Australian past into the setting of Harwich, England, where he lived from the early 1980s until his death in 2010. I have discussed elsewhere the overt connection in The Suburbs of Hell to Australia (Noske, ‘Chatter’), but it is also possible to read in the earlier texts connections with Stow’s life in Australia, particularly in his representation of landscape. Reading The Girl Green as Elderflower in this context opens interesting possibilities in understanding the spaces constructed within. This article will argue that Stow’s writing in the novel presents a complex transnationalism, one which challenges extant critical responses to Stow’s expatriation. It reads Stow’s place-making as embracing a fluidity that allows him to actively respond to postcolonialism as a global phenomenon and in doing so, examine Australian spaces through the lens of expatriation.' (Publication abstract)

The Randolph Stow Memorial Lecture Andrew Lynch , 2019 single work criticism
— Appears in: Westerly , vol. 64 no. 1 2019; (p. 142-150)
'It’s a great honour for me to be asked to give this memorial lecture for Randolph Stow. Thanks to the Westerly Centre and the Festival for inviting me. Stow’s writing has been a part of my life since my early twenties, when I was given the Penguin To the Islands (1962) as a birthday present. I didn’t know then that when Stow wrote it he was the same age as me reading it, or that it was his third published novel. After that, I read The Merry-go-Round in the Sea (1965) and Tourmaline (1963). Then in my early years here at the University of Western Australia (UWA) I first read two more: Visitants (1979) and The Girl Green as Elderflower (1980). Quite a few years later, after many re-readings, I think of Stow as a great artist, a poet amongst the English-language novelists of his time.' (Introduction)
‘Chatter about Harriet’ : Randolph Stow’s Place-making and 'The Suburbs of Hell' Kate Noske , 2018 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 1 no. 18 2018;

'Randolph Stow’s ‘English’ novels, The Girl Green as Elderflower (1980) and The Suburbs of Hell (1984) offer complex representations of space in text, which layer narrative and memory each over the other to inform the known setting. The resulting conceptualisation of place holds at its centre a transnational fluidity, which, when combined with the overt textual links between the stories and Stow’s own life, suggests a unique practice of place-making within his writing as an oeuvre. Reading Stow’s The Suburbs of Hell along these lines suggests it has a greater connection to a more general consideration of Australian narratives of place that might be assumed given its English setting. But what is specifically functioning within Stow’s writing practice to create places which embody this transnational mutability? This paper will examine Stow’s practice in writing for the purpose of understanding the manner in which the text constructs its setting, and whether or not reading these connections between Stow’s life and the text are productive of a cognizance of place-making in terms of writing practice.'  (Publication abstract)

Well Read Katharine England , 2015 single work review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 19 September 2015; (p. 28)

— Review of To the Islands Randolph Stow , 1958 single work novel ; The Girl Green as Elderflower Randolph Stow , 1980 single work novel ; Visitants Randolph Stow , 1979 single work novel ; The Suburbs of Hell : A Novel Randolph Stow , 1984 single work novel ; Tourmaline Randolph Stow , 1963 single work novel
Spiritual Journeys Hold Plenty of Intrigue Herb Hild , 1992 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 12 January 1992; (p. 19)

— Review of Corroboree Graham Masterton , 1984 single work novel ; Tourmaline Randolph Stow , 1963 single work novel ; To the Islands Randolph Stow , 1958 single work novel ; The Girl Green as Elderflower Randolph Stow , 1980 single work novel
From Egypt to Papua New Guinea Geoffrey Dutton , 1980 single work review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 26 August vol. 101 no. 5226 1980; (p. 72,74)

— Review of The Possession of Amber Nicholas Jose , 1980 selected work short story ; The Girl Green as Elderflower Randolph Stow , 1980 single work novel
[Review] The Girl Green as Elderflower [and] Visitants Bruce A. Clunies Ross , 1980 single work review
— Appears in: Kunapipi , vol. 2 no. 1 1980; (p. 184-185)

— Review of The Girl Green as Elderflower Randolph Stow , 1980 single work novel ; Visitants Randolph Stow , 1979 single work novel
[Review] The Girl Green as Elderflower V. Cunningham , 1980 single work review
— Appears in: The Times Literary Supplement , 16 May 1980; (p. 548)

— Review of The Girl Green as Elderflower Randolph Stow , 1980 single work novel
[Review] The Girl Green as Elderflower John Hanrahan , 1980 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , December no. 27 1980; (p. 8-9)

— Review of The Girl Green as Elderflower Randolph Stow , 1980 single work novel
Messiahs and Millennia in Randolph Stow's Novels Robyn Wallace , 1981 single work criticism
— Appears in: Kunapipi , vol. 3 no. 2 1981; (p. 56-72)

'The novels I shall concentrate on in discussing messiahs and millennia in Stow's work are To the Islands, Tourmaline, Visitants, and The Girl Green as Elderflower. Tourmaline and Visitants are the two which most clearly relate to millenarian themes. Tourmaline records the growth, and collapse, of a millenarian cult centred on the messianic or would-be messianic figure of the diviner Michael Random. Visitants is a structurally more complex exploration of three millenarian visions and their communal and personal repercussions, although the connotations of the title are not restricted to cargo or flying saucer cults.' (Publication abstract)

Ancestral Ghosts : An Interview with Randolph Stow Roger Averill (interviewer), 2003 single work interview
— Appears in: New Literatures Review , Summer no. 39 2003; (p. 89-103)
Vanishing Wunderkind Anthony J. Hassall , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , September no. 314 2009; (p. 29-31)
'I have so many truths to tell' : Randolph Stow's Visitants and The Girl Green as Elderflower Andrew Lynch , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , May vol. 26 no. 1 2011; (p. 20-32)
Grievous Music : Randolph Stow's Middle Ages Melanie Duckworth , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , October - November vol. 26 no. 3-4 2011; (p. 102-114)
Last amended 22 Apr 2020 09:44:22
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