A Fiction of Sisters: Christina Stead’s Letty Fox and For Love Alone

Abstract

CHRISTINA Stead's Letty Fox, Her Luck (1946) is not considered one of her major works. Critics have found it a racy, entertaining but rather shallow book, mirroring contemporary New York society. It is also seen as the first of what is called Stead's New York trilogy, the other two being A Little Tea A Little Chat and The People with the Dogs. Some of Stead's unpublished manuscripts, however, show that Letty Fox has a complicated gestation history. This new material encourages an autobiographical reading of Letty Fox and shows that the novel has close links with the preceding book For Love Alone. Letty Fox should be seen as belonging to the autobiographical sequel as well as being the first of a series of novels set in New York.