AustLit

Editor's note: Quemar's edition of Play With Knives was created in close collaboration with its author, Jennifer Maiden, to preserve the original novel's multifaceted plot, imagery and characterisation. In light of this, the text of the new edition is thoroughly revised, but focuses on expanding and clarifying narrative and diction. A new edition of Play With Knives may be of particular interest now, as the original beautiful and striking, but insufficiently distributed, novel led to the George and Clare poems in Maiden's prize-winning Giramondo collections. Also in the up-dated edition, any social or cultural aspects that could be misinterpreted by a current readership are clarified, unless necessary to illustrate complex historical or social attitudes.