Christina Stead Collection

This guide is an introduction to UNSW Special Collections rare book and manuscript sources relating to the Australian writer Christina Stead (1902-1983).

The core collection comprises 139 books and journals by and about Stead, amassed by her friend and biographer, Professor Ron Geering. The material includes early editions, paperback and later reissues, foreign language translations, biographies, anthologies, and literary journals containing short stories and critical studies of her work. Also listed are a selection of Special Collections manuscript collections containing correspondence or other papers relating to Stead.
 
Highlights include nine titles from Stead’s personal library given to Geering. These comprise signed or inscribed first editions of House of All Nations (1946), The Man Who Loved Children (1966), Letty Fox Her Luck (1934), Dark Places of the Heart (1966), Miss Herbert (1976), and The World is Mine by her husband William Blake (1939). An acrostic by Stead for Blake is inscribed in Seven Poor Men of Sydney (1934). Many of the volumes are well-used, attesting to their significance for Stead as personal reference copies during her lifetime.