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About This Book:

Title: The Man Who Loved Children

Other Available Formats:
Paperback, 1966
Paperback, 1980
Hardcover, 1995
Audio Cassette, 1997
Paperback, 2001
Compact Disc, 2007
MP3 CD, 2007

Synopsis
This searing, nasty, and pathologically brilliant novel was first published in 1940, but only began to receive its proper acclaim after it was re-released in 1965 with an introduction by poet Randell Jarell. Based in part on Christina Stead's own childhood, THE MAN WHO LOVED CHILDREN creates an unforgettable picture of a family ruled over by Sam Pollit, an egotistical father, a naturalist who loves to preach about the pleasures of science and the world, but simultaneously crushes his children's spirit with his puritanical and cloying persona. Meanwhile, his wife, Henny, is a pathetic and miserable creature, overwhelmed by the duties of house and children. As Louisa, 14, seeks to break free from her parents stifling oppression, the novel reaches heights (or perhaps depths) of family dysfunction.

Details
Series:             Capuchin Classics
Language:        English

Size
Length:        260 Pages



Industry Reviews
"One of the best novels of this century."
"It must be a classic, for there are very few novels in England that are as large and as beautifully written."
"Stead's masterwork...We shut the book feeling stunned."
"A work of absolute originality."
"Washington in the Thirties was crammed with Sam and Henrietta Pollits, and Miss Stead, an Australian who for some years resided in the States with her husband, must, I imagine, have had great fun exploiting all the nonsense she was forced to listen to while she was among them. But since she is a writer of great ability, she has done more than that; she has immortalized them. I do hope that some of our literary explicators get to work on this book. It is an absolute treasure trove of meaning, piles upon meaning. Like many masterpieces, [this book] is not an entirely perfect book...But...slips hardly matter in so rich and lifelike a work. Even if you read no other book this year, you should read The Man Who Loved Children."
(4/10/65)
"The single-minded intensity of its evocation of domestic terror gives it a greater artistic cohesion than Stead's subsequent work... And Stead permits herself a genuinely tragic resolution. A ravaged harridan, Henny, the focus of the novel, dies in a grand, outrageous gesture, an act of self-immolation that... is almost a conventional catharsis."
(09/16/1982)
"Christina Stead is one of those rare and wonderful creatures, a woman who writes fiction like a woman, not in imitation of a man... She brings to her work a profound woman's deep sensitivity to the nuances of yearning and suffering for which there are no words... It is her tragic and penetrating vision of the human condition that gives her best novels... their thrust toward greatness."
(12/18/67)
"As plainly good as 'War and Peace' and 'Crime and Punishment' and 'Remembrance of Things Past'... When you have read it, you have been, for a few hours, a Pollit..."
(from his 1965 Introduction to)
"THE MAN WHO LOVED CHILDREN is one of the most truthful and terrifying horror stories ever written about family life."
(04/02/1965)


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Book Details Summary: The title of this book is The Man Who Loved Children and it was written by Christina Stead. This edition of The Man Who Loved Children is in a Paperback format. This books publish date is September 2010 and it has a suggested retail price of $14.95. There are 260 pages in the book and it was published by Capuchin Classics. The 10 digit ISBN is 0955519608 and the 13 digit ISBN is 9780955519604. For the most current lowest price, Click Here.