MS 4967
Papers of Christina Stead (1902 - 1983)



Scope and Content Note

Papers

1919-1996

2.8m. (20 boxes)

Available for reference

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.

Provenance note

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

Related materials

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 (1928-29 and 1953-68) and Paris (1929-33), where she worked as a secretary and translator and in the United States of America, (1935-47).

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.


Papers Received 31 October 1984

Box 1

Folder

1

‘More lives than one’

Uncompleted novel
2

For love alone

Notes and jottings
3

The man who loved children

Jottings
4

House of all nations

Odd pages
5

The beauties and furies

Fragments from early versions
6

‘The right-angled creek’

Novella, early version

Box 2

Folder

7

Letty Fox

Notes and fragments from early versions
8

Tales

Story topics and fragments
9

The people with the dogs

Notes
10

Cotters’ England

Early versions, fragments
‘Branch line: the northern engineer’
11

Cotters’ England

Notes and parts of early version
‘Brother and sister’
12-14

Miss Herbert

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

Box 3

Folder

15-17

Miss Herbert

A more recent corrected typescript with changed ending
18

‘Eleanor’, Miss Herbert

Notes and fragments of early versions
19-20

‘Fan Pearl’

Notes, background material; sketches and other television projects
21

‘Foxwarren Hall’

Memoirs, 1958

Box 4

Folder

22

‘Foxwarren Hall’

Memoirs, 1959-60 (?) See also folder 22a in box 16
23

‘Four just men’

Rough version and suggestions for a T.V. series
24

Women

Women’s Movement letters, notes
25

Doctor

Notes for a nouvelle
26

Albania

Notes, sketches, fragments of a nouvelle
27

Spanish

Handwritten passages
28

Cards and cryptography

29

‘The student lovers part 2:
The student of Naples’

Parts of an early nouvelle

Box 5

Folder

30

‘Yiddish’

Dialogue, notes and sketches
31

‘The talking ghost’

Fragments of stories and notes
32

Miscellaneous I

33

Miscellaneous II

34

Miscellaneous III

35

Miscellaneous IV

36

Miscellaneous V

37

Miscellaneous VI

Box 6

Folder

38

Lydham, early Sydney, family

39

Miscellaneous VII

40

Miscellaneous VIII

Early fragments, ‘The Wraith and the
Wanderer’, Verse, ‘Under Capricorn’
41

Miscellaneous IX

42

Miscellaneous X

43

‘The traveller’s bed and breakfast’, St Prex

44

‘Marionettes I’

Nello
45

‘Marionettes II’

Jan Callowjan

Box 7

Folder

46-47

‘On Literature I’

48-49

‘On Literature II’

50-51

Letters

52

Answers to questionnaire
(a) International Association of Writers for the Defence of Culture, 1937
(b) Interview by Jonah Raskin

53

On Virginia Woolf

54

On David Smith’s Medals for Dishonour

Box 8

Folder

55

On Stanley Burnshaw

 
56

Stanley Burnshaw.

‘Caged in an Animal’s Mind’
57

Stanley Burnshaw.

Poems
57

Stanley Burnshaw.

‘The Hero of Silence’
58

Stanley Burnshaw.

‘Uriel Da Costa’
59

Ettore Rella.

‘American Portifolio’ With comments
60

Ettore Rella.

(i) ‘Smiley the Guru’ With comments
(ii) ‘The Real Imitation’
61

Vietnam

Printed matter
62

‘Women in Love’

Sapphire Films

Box 9

Folder

63

(i) Mary Sarton.
(ii) George Baxt.

‘The Leopard Land’
‘The Curse of the Golem’
Original story and screenplay, 1958
64

John Bright.

‘City of Angels’
65

(i) Oliver Stallybrass.
(ii) E. Louise Mally.

‘I. 2 Track Mind’
‘The Hunter of Kentucky’
66

Jorge Ibarguengoitia.

‘The Dead Girls’
67-68

Elaine Kraf.

‘The House of Madelaine’
69

John Bright.

‘The Paper World’
70

American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, 1981-83


Addition 10 October 1986

Box 10

Folder

71

Correspondence from Philip Harvey, 1961-1980

72

Correspondence from Stead to Philip and Leah Harvey, 1968-1984

73-78

Early versions of material published in Ocean of Story

Box 11

Folder

79

Unpublished articles and notes

80-83

Book reviews

84

Workshop in the novel

85-86

I’m dying laughing - background material

Box 12

Folder

87

I’m dying laughing - notes and background material

88-94

I’m dying laughing - early versions

Box 13

Folder

95-99

I’m dying laughing - early versions

100-102

I’m dying laughing - final draft

Box 14

Folder

103-107

I’m dying laughing - final draft

Le Grand Véfour – menu


Addition 9 September 1988

Box 14

Folder

108

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’

109

Correspondence between Christina Stead and Norman Rosten, 1967-82 Includes poems by Rosten sent to Stead.

NB: There is also Stead material held at MS 802/Box 49/Folder 377 - Correspondence with H.C. Coombs, 1972-82 (Restricted)


Addition 7 June 1991

Box 15

Folder

110

Diary ‘First days of a modern Monte Christo’, Belgium, August - October 1936

111

Diary ‘The travellers’ bed and breakfast’, Switzerland and France, September 1950 - April 1951

112

Diaries, Paris, United States, Spain, Belgium, London, 1929-40

113

Miscellaneous typescripts (See Appendix I)

114

Photocopies of letters of Harry Bloom, 1949-74

115

Letters of Ettore and Jessie Rella, 1944-82

116

Stead's letters to Ettore Rella, 1967-82

117

Poems by Ettore Rella

118

Correspondence with Philip Harvey, 1958-78

Box 16

Folder

119-120

Correspondence with William Blake, 1929-68

22a

Record of life at Foxwarren, 1959-60 (Added 23 June 1975)


Addition October 1993

Box 17

Folder

121-123

Correspondence of Christina Stead and William Blake 1930-81
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, Hyrell and Judah Waten and Asa Zatz.


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.

Box 17

Folder

124

Correspondence of Christina Stead, 1957-82
Correspondents include Dymphna Cusack, A.D. Hope, Hal Porter and Patrick White.

125

Correspondence of Christina Stead and William Blake, 1946-73
Correspondents include H. Grossman, Dymphna Cusack, Tella Friedmann, Stanley Burnshaw and Oliver Stallybrass.

126

Miscellaneous typescripts including some correspondence, 1933-77

127-128

Correspondence with Cyrilly Abels, 1965-75

Box 18

Folder

129

Condolences to Christina Stead on the death of her husband, William Blake, 1968

130

Portrait photographs, mainly of Christina Stead and William Blake, c.1930-80

131

Correspondence between Christina Stead and William Blake


Addition 28 January 1999

Folder

132

Photocopies of Christina Stead’s letters to Stanley Burnshaw, 1937-69

133

Photocopies of Christina Stead’s letters to Stanley Burnshaw and others, 1965-82


Addition 16 July 1999

Folder

134

Photograph of the family farewell to Christina Stead, at Hopetoun Avenue, Chatswood, March 1928, before Stead left for England


Addition 3 August 1999

Folder

136

Wooden plaque given to Christina Stead as a book prize


Addition 7 December 1999

Folder

135

Copies of two family photographs. 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.


Appendix I

Addition 7 June 1991 - Box 15 Folder 113

  1. ‘The 36 classic dramatic situations’
  2. ‘Bookbinding ateliers of Paris’
  3. ‘A few points’
  4. ‘Decline of the bourgeois audience in England’
  5. ‘ Overland’ - fragments on childhood, voyage to Europe
  6. ‘Why I am an expatriate’ - fragments of various versions
  7. ‘Obsession’
  8. ‘Workers and writers’
  9. ‘Terror in La Ciudad Imbecila’
  10. ‘Reverberations from Spain’
  11. ‘Guns along the Bidasoa’
  12. Virginia Woolf - Quentin Bell
  13. ‘Senor Armino’ - notes on The Man Who Loved Children
  14. ‘Notes on Letty Fox and Teresa’
  15. ‘Notes on Jack Brame and family’
  16. ‘Love affairs’ - Letty Fox and For Love Alone
  17. ‘The Fausts’
  18. ‘Journal of "The Blackmailer"’
  19. ‘From a radio interview’
  20. ‘The doctor and Vietnam’
March 1997 Amended May 2000