Christina Stead Boeken

You can't help liking Letty Fox. She is the eponymous hero of this novel, and what a big, energetic, sprawling novel it is. Letty Fox, with brio and relish, describes her picaresque adventures in the New York and London of the 1930s and 1940s. She is surrounded by a family notable for its size, eccentricity and marital irregularities. Letty herself has many affairs but finds marriage elusive. Bizarre, satirical and imaginative, first published in 1947, this powerful portrayal of a woman who might have been independent but chose otherwise stands as one of Christina Stead's most impressive works. Christina Stead is much more than the author of "The Man Who Loved Children." To remind readers forcefully of this, Faber Finds is reissuing nine of her works: "The Beauties and Furies," "For Love Alone," "House of All Nations," "Letty Fox: Her Luck," "A Little Tea, A Little Chat," "Miss Herbert," "The People with Dogs," "The Puzzleheaded Girl" and "The Salzburg Tales."

Eleanor Herbert Brent is a beautiful English woman who believes in respectability and nurtures a desire to be a wife and mother in the 'dear old fashioned way'. But sexuality too forms her personality, and as a young graduate on the loose in London she explores it with every man she meets. She experiences everything: a restless, promiscuous youth, a wholesome suburban marriage, life on the fringes of literary London. Only one thing remains beyond her reach: the experience of real love; this and this only could transform Miss Herbert into the passionate woman she really is.

With an Introduction by Randall Jarrell. Sam and Henny Pollit have too many children, too little money, and too much loathing for each other. As Sam uses the children's adoration to feed his own voracious ego, Henny watches in bleak despair, knowing the bitter reality that lies just below his mad visions. A chilling novel of family life, the relations between parents and children, husbands and wives, The Man Who Loved Children, is acknowledged as a contemporary classic.

Living on the seamier side of New York in 1941, Robert Grant is a middle-aged man to whom life is a game in which he makes his own rules. This is no more evident than in the pursuit of his only hobby: the search for, seduction and betrayal of women. His targets are always 'easy', the cheaper the better. He is constantly on the lookout for a new face, a new phone number, 'a little tea, a little chat'. While Grant gets a certain thrill from his intrigues, he receives little pleasure - and gives none, until he meets Barbara, the 'blondine', a large, goodlooking but sluttish woman of thirty-two. In Barbara, he meets his match. First published in 1948, A Little Tea, A Little Chat provides an irresistible, sardonic commentary on men and women on the make whose sexual appetites wickedly mirror the materialism of wartime America.

The narrative features four interconnected novellas that explore themes of women's independence and resistance to societal norms. Honor Lawrence stands out as a compelling character who embodies this struggle, showcasing her determination to forge her own path. Through vivid storytelling, the author delves into the complexities of female empowerment and the challenges faced by women in their quest for autonomy.

Par une brumeuse matinée de 1934, Elvira Western quitte son confort londonien et son mari pour rejoindre à Paris son jeune amant, Oliver Fenton, un étudiant anglais exalté. Mais, rapidement, l'escapade se transforme en journées languides dans les cafés de Saint-Germain-des-Prés en compagnie de journalistes débauchés, de bourgeois extravagants et d'une danseuse de cabaret désargentée. De flûtes de champagne en apéritifs, de déconvenues amoureuses en rencontres nocturnes surréelles, Elvira doute de son choix, jusqu'à regretter sa vie avec Paul, son époux, qui tente de la reconquérir. Ce drame romantique avant-gardiste dépeint, dans le Paris fantasmagorique et électrique de l'entre-deux-guerres, les passions paradoxales d'une femme trop intelligente, espiègle et inconstante pour aimer les hommes.