Review of Christina Stead by R. G. Geering

Abstract

Christina Stead is one of the major innovatory prose writers in English of this century. This needs stating at the outset, since her stature, distinction and uniqueness do not sufficiently emerge from Professor Geering's two studies. Despite the enthusiastic rediscovery of her work in 1965, she has received little critical discussion. And welcome as it is to see two volumes on her in standard series, it is unfortunate that they are both by the same writer. For instead of a possible dialectic of discussion and an ensuing extension of debate, we are given a repetition of the same values, the same approach; and since both the series require essentially introductory studies, it is a repetition of the main superficialities.