The Man Who Loved Children - Softcover

Christina Stead’s finest and most famous novel, 'The Man Who Loved Children', is the story of the savage warfare between Henrietta, ‘a raging wreck of a woman, driven by horror, passion and contempt,’ and her husband Sam, whose impractical idealism has brought his family to near-ruin. At sea in the world of adults, Sam is a genius in the eyes of each of his five children – except for Louie, his gauche and brilliant elder daughter. Wise and all-seeing, Louie is forced to take drastic steps to save herself and her siblings from lasting tragedy...

At once an immediate and rhapsodic study of the intricacies and joys of family life and a dark and intense study of domestic terror, 'The Man Who Loved Children' is one of the century’s great originals.

“To open any book by Christina Stead is to be at once aware that one is in the presence of greatness. A profoundly serious, deeply accomplished and magically illuminating novelist, she restores to us the entire world in its infinite complexity and inexorable bitterness.”
ANGELA CARTER.

“'The Man Who Loved Children' is Stead’s finest and most finely balanced novel. A dark star among novelists, her work is of a verdigris brilliance, of a very fine perception and always of uncalculating honesty.”
'TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT.'

“The art of Christina Stead is individual, idiosyncratic, constantly challenging, emotionally and intellectually rewarding.”
'LISTENER.'

“Christina Stead is a formidable and entirely individual writer.”
'NEW STATESMAN.'