Guide to the Papers of Christina Stead

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MS 4967

National Library of Australia View Catalogue Record

Collection Summary

Creator
Stead, Christina
Title
Papers of Christina Stead
Date Range
1929 - 1996
Collection Number
MS 4967
Extent
2.7 metres (18 ms boxes)
Language of Materials
English
Repository
Special Collections (Manuscripts)
Sponsor
This finding aid was revised and published with the assistance of the Ray Mathew and Eva Kollsman Trust.

Introduction

Scope and Contents

Manuscript and typescript drafts of prose; notes, background material and jottings relating to Stead's literary output; correspondence with Philip Harvey, Norman Rosten, Ettore Rella, William Blake, Cyrilly Abels, Stanley Burnshaw and others; diaries, reviews, photographs and other papers. The collection also includes literary drafts of other writers including Ettore Rella, Mary Sarton, George Baxt, John Bright, Oliver Stallybrass, E. Louise Mally, Jorge Ibarguengoitia, Elaine Kraf, Norman Rosten and Stanley Burnshaw.

Conditions Governing Access

Available for research.

Provenance

The Stead Papers were acquired in ten consignments between 1975 and 1999, mainly from Stead's literary executor, Professor Ron Geering.

Correspondence and other papers relating to Christina Stead are also held other Manuscript Collection including MS 802 (H.C. Coombs, box 49, folder 377); MS 7168 (Jack Lindsay), MS 7228 (Ettore Rella), MS 7306, MS 7570 (W.H. Pearson), MS 7666, MS 7840 (Donald A. Cameron), MS 8317, MS 8477, MS 8548 (Laurence Pollinger), MS 8617, MS 8645, MS 9244 (Hazel Rowley), MS 9351 (R.G. Geering) and MS 9405 (Edith Anderson).

Biographical Note

Christina Ellen Stead was born in Sydney on 17 July 1902, the daughter of the naturalist David Stead. She was educated at Bexley Public School, St. George High School (Kogarah), Sydney Girls' School and Sydney Teachers' College, where she graduated in 1921. Stead worked as a teacher until 1924 and in office work until her departure from Australia in 1928. Stead lived most of her life abroad, mainly in London (1928-1929 and 1953-1968) and Paris (1929-1933), where she worked as a secretary and translator and in the United States of America, (1935-1947).

During the 1930s Stead began writing novels. The Salzburg tales and Seven poor men of Sydney were published in 1934 and her highly praised novel The man who loved children appeared in 1940. Despite critical acclaim she did not win a more general following in Australia until the mid 1960s. After the death of her partner William Blake, Stead returned briefly to Australia in 1969 as writer-in-residence at the Australian National University. In 1974 she returned permanently to Australia, receiving the inaugural Patrick White Award in the same year.

Stead died in Sydney on 31 March 1983.

Item Descriptions

Class. Papers received 1975-1984

"More lives than one" (File 1) - Box 1

Uncompleted novel

For love alone (File 2) - Box 1

Notes and jottings

The man who loved children (File 3) - Box 1

Jottings

House of all nations (File 4) - Box 1

Odd pages

The beauties and furies (File 5) - Box 1

Fragments from early versions

"The right-angled creek" (File 6) - Box 1

Novella, early version

Letty Fox (File 7) - Box 2

Notes and fragments from early versions

"Tales" (File 8) - Box 2

Story topics and fragments

The people with the dogs (File 9) - Box 2

Notes

Cotters' England (File 10) - Box 2

Early versions, fragments : "Branch line: the northern engineer"

Cotters' England (File 11) - Box 2

Notes and parts of early version : "Brother and sister"

Miss Herbert (File 12_14) - Box 2

Corrected typescript (early), slightly different final paragraph from that in the book

Miss Herbert (File 15_17) - Box 3

A more recent corrected typescript with changed ending

"Eleanor", Miss Herbert (File 18) - Box 3

Notes and fragments of early versions

"Fan Pearl" (File 19_20) - Box 3

Notes, background material; sketches and other television projects

"Foxwarren Hall" (File 21) - Box 3

Memoirs, 1958

"Foxwarren Hall" (File 22) - Box 4

Memoirs, 1959-60 (?). See also Folder 22a in Box 16.

"Four just men" (File 23) - Box 4

Rough version and suggestions for a T.V. series

"Women" (File 24) - Box 4

Women's Movement letters, notes

"Doctor" (File 25) - Box 4

Notes for a nouvelle

"Albania" (File 26) - Box 4

Notes, sketches, fragments of a nouvelle

"Spanish" (File 27) - Box 4

Handwritten passages

"Cards and cryptography" (File 28) - Box 4

"The student lovers part 2: The student of Naples" (File 29) - Box 4

Parts of an early nouvelle

"Yiddish" (File 30) - Box 5

Dialogue, notes and sketches

"The talking ghost" (File 31) - Box 5

Fragments of stories and notes

Miscellaneous I (File 32) - Box 5

Miscellaneous II (File 33) - Box 5

Miscellaneous III (File 34) - Box 5

Miscellaneous IV (File 35) - Box 5

Miscellaneous V (File 36) - Box 5

Miscellaneous VI (File 37) - Box 5

Lydham, early Sydney, family (File 38) - Box 6

Miscellaneous VII (File 39) - Box 6

Miscellaneous VIII (File 40) - Box 6

Early fragments, "The Wraith and the Wanderer", Verse, "Under Capricorn"

Miscellaneous IX (File 41) - Box 6

Miscellaneous X (File 42) - Box 6

"The traveller's bed and breakfast", St Prex (File 43) - Box 6

"Marionettes I" (File 44) - Box 6

Nello

"Marionettes II" (File 45) - Box 6

Jan Callowjan

"On Literature I" (File 46_47) - Box 7

"On Literature II" (File 48_49) - Box 7

Letters (File 50_51) - Box 7

'Answers to Questionnaire' : (a) International Association of Writers for the Defence of Culture, 1937 : (b) Interview by Jonah Raskin (File 52) - Box 7

"On Virginia Woolf" (File 53) - Box 7

"On David Smith's Medals for Dishonour" (File 54) - Box 7

"On Stanley Burnshaw" (File 55) - Box 8

Stanley Burnshaw (File 56) - Box 8

"Caged in an Animal's Mind"

Stanley Burnshaw (File 57) - Box 8

Poems

Stanley Burnshaw (File 57) - Box 8

"The Hero of Silence"

Stanley Burnshaw (File 58) - Box 8

"Uriel Da Costa"

Ettore Rella (File 59) - Box 8

"American Portifolio" With comments

Ettore Rella (File 60) - Box 8

(i) "Smiley the Guru" With comments : (ii) "The Real Imitation"

Vietnam (File 61) - Box 8

Printed matter

"Women in Love" (File 62) - Box 8

Sapphire Films

(i) Mary Sarton. (ii) George Baxt (File 63) - Box 9

"The Leopard Land". "The Curse of the Golem". Original story and screenplay, 1958

John Bright (File 64) - Box 9

City of Angels

(i) Oliver Stallybrass. (ii) E. Louise Mally (File 65) - Box 9

"I. 2 Track Mind". "The Hunter of Kentucky"

Jorge Ibarguengoitia (File 66) - Box 9

"The Dead Girls"

Elaine Kraf (File 67_68) - Box 9

"The House of Madelaine"

John Bright (File 69) - Box 9

"The Paper World"

American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, 1981-83 (File 70) - Box 9

Class. Addition 10 October 1986

This addition described by Marlene Bonny, 13 March 1987.

Correspondence from Philip Harvey, 1961-1980 (File 71) - Box 10

Correspondence from Stead to Philip and Leah Harvey, 1968-1984 (File 72) - Box 10

Early versions of material published in Ocean of Story (File 73_78) - Box 10

Unpublished articles and notes (File 79) - Box 11

Book reviews (File 80_83) - Box 11

Workshop in the novel (File 84) - Box 11

I'm dying laughing - background material (File 85_86) - Box 11

I'm dying laughing - notes and background material (File 87) - Box 12

I'm dying laughing - early versions (File 88_94) - Box 12

I'm dying laughing - early versions (File 95_99) - Box 13

I'm dying laughing - final draft (File 100_102) - Box 13

I'm dying laughing - final draft : Le Grand Véfour - menu (File 103_107) - Box 14

Class. Addition 9 September 1988

Three typescripts (n.d.): "Extracts from a Spanish diary" (2 p.), "Notes on character observation" (2 p.), "Clarification of the plot - how to approach and write the great scene" (2 p.) : Unfinished stories in typescript (no dates but some appear circa early 1940s): "The bearded lady" "Lafe Tilley's haunted house" "Haunted cars" "The talking ghost" "George eccentricities" "MM's ghost" (File 108) - Box 14

Correspondence between Christina Stead and Norman Rosten, 1967-82 (File 109) - Box 14

Includes poems by Rosten sent to Stead.

Class. Addition 7 June 1991

Diary "First days of a modern Monte Christo", Belgium, August - October 1936 (File 110) - Box 15

Diary "The travellers' bed and breakfast", Switzerland and France, September 1950 - April 1951 (File 111) - Box 15

Diaries, Paris, United States, Spain, Belgium, London, 1929-40 (File 112) - Box 15

Miscellaneous typescripts (File 113) - Box 15

"The 36 classic dramatic situations" (Item 1)
"Bookbinding ateliers of Paris" (Item 2)
"A few points" (Item 3)
"Decline of the bourgeois audience in England" (Item 4)
"Overland" - fragments on childhood, voyage to Europe (Item 5)
"Why I am an expatriate" - fragments of various versions (Item 6)
"Obsession" (Item 7)
"Workers and writers" (Item 8)
"Terror in La Ciudad Imbecila" (Item 9)
"Reverberations from Spain" (Item 10)
"Guns along the Bidasoa" (Item 11)
Virginia Woolf - Quentin Bell (Item 12)
"Senor Armino" - notes on The Man Who Loved Children (Item 13)
"Notes on Letty Fox and Teresa" (Item 14)
"Notes on Jack Brame and family" (Item 15)
"Love affairs" - Letty Fox and For Love Alone (Item 16)
"The Fausts" (Item 17)
Journal of "The Blackmailer" (Item 18)
"From a radio interview" (Item 19)
"The doctor and Vietnam" (Item 20)

Photocopies of letters of Harry Bloom, 1949-74 (File 114) - Box 15

Letters of Ettore and Jessie Rella, 1944-82 (File 115) - Box 15

Stead's letters to Ettore Rella, 1967-82 (File 116) - Box 15

Poems by Ettore Rella (File 117) - Box 15

Correspondence with Philip Harvey, 1958-78 (File 118) - Box 15

Correspondence with William Blake, 1929-68 (File 119_120) - Box 16

Record of life at Foxwarren, 1959-60 (File 22a) - Box 16

Added 23 June 1975

Class. Addition October 1993

Correspondence of Christina Stead and William Blake, 1930-81 (File 121_123) - Box 17

Correspondents include Eldon Branda, Richard Kopely, Aida Kotlarsky, Nadine Mendelson, W.H. Pearson, Norman Rosten, Eva Schumann, Catherine Stead, Gilbert Stead, Philip Van Doren Stern, Neil Stewart, Gwen Walker-Smith, Hyren and Judah Waten and Asa Zatz.

Class. Addition 6 February 1996

This addition consists mainly of correspondence with Christina Stead and her husband, William Blake, and a folder of portrait photographs 1930-82.

Correspondence of Christina Stead, 1957-82 (File 124) - Box 17

Correspondents include Dymphna Cusack, A.D. Hope, Hal Porter and Patrick White.

Correspondence of Christina Stead and William Blake, 1946-73 (File 125) - Box 17

Correspondents include H. Grossman, Dymphna Cusack, Tella Friedmann, Stanley Burnshaw and Oliver Stallybrass.

Miscellaneous typescripts including some correspondence, 1933-77 (File 126) - Box 17

Correspondence with Cyrilly Abels, 1965-75 (File 127_128) - Box 17

Condolences to Christina Stead on the death of her husband, William Blake, 1968 (File 129) - Box 18

Portrait photographs, mainly of Christina Stead and William Blake, c.1930-80 (File 130) - Box 18

Correspondence between Christina Stead and William Blake (File 131) - Box 18

Class. Addition 28 January 1999

Photocopies of Christina Stead's letters to Stanley Burnshaw, 1937-69 (File 132) - Box 18

Photocopies of Christina Stead's letters to Stanley Burnshaw and others, 1965-82 (File 133) - Box 18

Class. Addition 16 July 1999

Photograph of the family farewell to Christina Stead, at Hopetoun Avenue, Chatswood, March 1928, before Stead left for England (File 134) - Box 18

Class. Addition 3 August 1999

Wooden plaque given to Christina Stead as a book prize (Item [unnumbered]) - Box 18

Class. Addition 7 December 1999

Copies of two family photographs (File 135) - Box 18

The first was taken at a family welcome home in 1919 for Stead's cousin Sidney Stead, and includes both Stead and her father. The second is of Stead's half siblings, taken on the waterfront at 'Boongarre' in 1919.


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