"This is the first volume of essays by various hands on the work of the great Australian novelist Christina Stead (1902-83). It provides an overview of Stead criticism, including pioneering 'classic' essays, together with a selection from the burgeoning critical literature of the 1980s and '90s, and several articles not previously published. The essays, representing a range of critical approaches to Stead's fiction, by Australian, North American and English critics, deal with Stead's work from her first published fiction, The Salzburg Tales (1934), to the posthumous I'm Dying Laughing (1986). The selection foregrounds discussion of her masterpiece, The Man Who Loved Children (1940)."--BOOK JACKET.