Christina Stead's published work spans five decades, but official recognition came late in her life, with an Emeritus Fellowship from the Australian National University in 1979 and the NSW Premier's Award for her contribution to Australian literature in 1982. This cross-section of Stead's work, both published and unpublished, amply displays the range of her writing as well as her political and social views. Her fiction is represented by selections from the novels and short fiction with Australian settings and associations, and by the complete novella The Puzzleheaded Girl. Material previously unavailable in book form includes extracts from interviews and the draft of a rare public talk on "The Uses of the Many-Charactered Novel".