Christina Stead, For Love Alone

Anna Snaith (Independent Scholar - Europe)
Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Report an Error
For Love Alone

was Christina Stead's fifth novel, and the second with an Australian setting. She described it as a sequel to

The Man Who Loved Children

(1940), her loosely autobiographical depiction of her early family life. In many respects this novel is even more autobiographically accurate than its prequel, although Stead does, as in

The Man Who Loved Children

, alter the dates of events. Stead left Australia in 1928, whereas Teresa Hawkins, Stead's heroine, arrives in London in 1936. Harcourt Brace did not require an American setting, as Simon and Schuster had done with

The Man Who Loved Children

, so the sequel became Stead's most important Australian novel. In particular, Stead focuses on Australia as an “island continent” and Australians as “sea people”. Teresa's voyage to…

953 words

Citation: Snaith, Anna. "For Love Alone". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 07 July 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5104, accessed 19 March 2024.]

5104 For Love Alone 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.