The Long Prospect: Text Classics

The Long Prospect: Text Classics PDF Author: Elizabeth Harrower
Publisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 1921961767
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
Sharply observed, bitter and humorous, The Long Prospect is a story of life in an Australian industrial town. Growing up neglected in a seedy boarding house, Emily Lawrence befriends Max, a middle-aged scientist who encourages her to pursue her intellectual interests. Innocent Emily will face scandal, suburban snobbery and psychological torment.

The Long Prospect: Text Classics

The Long Prospect: Text Classics PDF Author: Elizabeth Harrower
Publisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 1921961767
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
Sharply observed, bitter and humorous, The Long Prospect is a story of life in an Australian industrial town. Growing up neglected in a seedy boarding house, Emily Lawrence befriends Max, a middle-aged scientist who encourages her to pursue her intellectual interests. Innocent Emily will face scandal, suburban snobbery and psychological torment.

The Watch Tower: Text Classics

The Watch Tower: Text Classics PDF Author: Elizabeth Harrower
Publisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 1921921986
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
‘Harrower's greatest novel [is] The Watch Tower (1966), the bitter story of two sisters, Laura and Clare, who lose their parents and fall under the sway of Felix Shaw, an abusive and controlling drunk...[It is] her masterpiece.’ James Wood, New Yorker After Laura and Clare are abandoned by their mother, Felix is there to help, even to marry Laura if she will have him. Little by little the two sisters grow complicit with his obsessions, his cruelty, his need to control. Set in the leafy northern suburbs of Sydney during the 1940s, The Watch Tower is a novel of relentless and acute psychological power. Elizabeth Harrower was born in Sydney in 1928 and moved to London in 1951. She travelled extensively and began to write fiction. Her first novel Down in the City was published in 1957, and was followed by The Long Prospect a year later. In 1959 she returned to Sydney where she began working for the ABC and as a book reviewer for the Sydney Morning Herald. In 1960 she published The Catherine Wheel, the story of an Australian law student in London, her only novel not set in Sydney. The Watch Tower appeared in 1966. No further novels were published until May 2014 when Harrower's 'lost' novel, In Certain Circles, was released. Her work is austere, intelligent, ruthless in its perceptions about men and women. She was admired by many of her contemporaries, including Patrick White and Christina Stead, and is without doubt among the most important writers of the postwar period in Australia. Elizabeth Harrower died in Sydney on 7 July 2020 at the age of ninety-two. 'Haunting and delicate.' Kirkus Reviews 'This is a harrowing novel, relentless in its depiction of marital enslavement, spiritual self-destruction and the exploited condition of women in a masculinist society...It is a brilliant achievement.' Washington Post 'Haunting...Harrower captures brilliantly the struggle to retain a self.' Guardian ‘Each of Harrower’s four novels is concerned with entrapment of one sort or another, through family or youth or love. But The Watch Tower, her last novel, is almost like a distillation in its vision of the forces of good and evil. Something runs clear and strong through this wonderful, painful novel, the dark and the light. The victim and the survivor. Suffering and joy. The knowledge of both. Reality.’ Joan London, Lit Hub 'Elizabeth Harrower's thrilling 1966 novel The Watch Tower comes rampaging back from decades of disgraceful neglect: a wartime Sydney story of two abandoned sisters and the arrival in their lives of Felix, one of literature's most ferociously realised nasty pieces of work.' Helen Garner, Australian 'A superb psychological novel that will creep into your bones.' Michelle de Kretser, The Monthly 'I read The Watch Tower with a mixture of fascination and horror. It was impossible to put down...Her acute psychological assessments are made from gestures, language and glances and she is brilliant on power, isolation and class.' Ramona Koval, Australian ‘To create a monster as continually credible, comic and nauseating as Felix is a feat of a very high order. But to control that creation, as Miss Harrower does, so that Clare remains the centre of interest is an achievement even more rare. The Watch Tower is a triumph of art over virtuosity...a dense, profoundly moral novel of our time.’ H.G. Kippax, Sydney Morning Herald, 19 November 1966 ‘As gripping and terrifying as any horror story...An astonishing book.’ Guardian

The Cardboard Crown: Text Classics

The Cardboard Crown: Text Classics PDF Author: Martin Boyd
Publisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 1921961716
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Set in Australia and England in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, The Cardboard Crown presents an unforgettable portrait of an upper middle-class family who love both countries but are not quite at home in either. Martin Boyd is a deeply humane novelist, a writer of family sagas without peer.

Swords and Crowns and Rings: Text Classics

Swords and Crowns and Rings: Text Classics PDF Author: Ruth Park
Publisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 1921961791
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 471

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Book Description
Ruth Park’s Miles Franklin-winning novel brilliantly evokes Australia in the midst of the Great Depression. Written with warmth and affection, Swords and Crowns and Rings is a powerful story about human nature and the strength of an unlikely love.

Down in the City

Down in the City PDF Author: Elizabeth Harrower
Publisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 1922148121
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
Esther Prescott has seen little of life outside her wealthy family's Rose Bay mansion, until flashy Stan Peterson comes roaring up the drive in his huge American car and barges into her life. Within a fortnight they are living in his Kings Cross flat. Moody and erratic, proud of his well-bred wife yet bitterly resentful of her privilege, Stan is involved with his former girlfriend and a series of shady business deals. Esther, innocent and desperate to please him, must endure his controlling ways. This story of a troubled and obsessive marriage, set against the backdrop of postwar Sydney, is devastating. First published in 1957, Down in the City announced Elizabeth Harrower as a major Australian writer. Elizabeth Harrower was born in Sydney in 1928 and moved to London in 1951. She travelled extensively and began to write fiction. Her first novel Down in the City was published in 1957, and was followed by The Long Prospect a year later. In 1959 she returned to Sydney where she began working for the ABC and as a book reviewer for the Sydney Morning Herald. In 1960 she published The Catherine Wheel, the story of an Australian law student in London, her only novel not set in Sydney. The Watch Tower appeared in 1966. No further novels were published until May 2014 when Harrower's 'lost' novel, In Certain Circles, was released. Her work is austere, intelligent, ruthless in its perceptions about men and women. She was admired by many of her contemporaries, including Patrick White and Christina Stead, and is without doubt among the most important writers of the postwar period in Australia. Elizabeth Harrower died in Sydney on 7 July 2020 at the age of ninety-two. 'Down in the City marked the arrival of one of the sharpest authors of psychological fiction in Australian literature. Many of the things that happen in the novel are unpleasant, but are rendered with such intensity and psychological insight that the experience of reading about them is thrilling.' Australian 'a triumph from Text's project to recover forgotten Australian literature. Doused in melancholy and written from an accessible yet unnerving third-person perspective, Harrower's debut is a light read with weighty resonance.' Readings Bookshop

The Watch Tower

The Watch Tower PDF Author: Elizabeth Harrower
Publisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 1921922427
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Breaking their poses like trees snapping branches, the women urgently regarded each other, cleared away all signs of work in an instant, examined their souls for defects, in a sense crossed themselves, and waited. After Laura and Clare are abandoned by their mother, Felix is there to help, even to marry Laura if she will have him. Little by little the two sisters grow complicit with his obsessions, his cruelty, his need to control. Set in the leafy northern suburbs of Sydney during the 1940s, The Watch Tower is a novel of relentless and acute psychological power.

The Australian Ugliness: Text Classics

The Australian Ugliness: Text Classics PDF Author: Robin Boyd
Publisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 1921921994
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
Brilliant, witty, scathing, The Australian Ugliness is the classic postwar account of Australian society, how we live in the environments we create, and the consequences of our failure to think about how we live.

So Fine a Prospect

So Fine a Prospect PDF Author: Alan Emmet
Publisher: UPNE
ISBN: 9780874517743
Category : Gardening
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Join Alan Emmet on a tour of gardens that graced New England from just after the American Revolution into the 20th century. A Martha Stewart Decorative Arts Gift Book Choice for 1996.

Budding Prospects

Budding Prospects PDF Author: T.C. Boyle
Publisher: Granta Books
ISBN: 1783781394
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
Felix is a quitter, with a poor track record behind him. Until the day the opportunity presents itself to make half a million dollars tax-free - by nurturing 390 acres of cannabis in the lonely hills of northern California.

The Catherine Wheel

The Catherine Wheel PDF Author: Elizabeth Harrower
Publisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 1922148954
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 343

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Book Description
Twenty-five-year-old Clemency James has moved from Sydney to a chilly bedsit on the other side of the world. During the day she studies for the bar by correspondence; in the evenings she gives French lessons to earn a meagre wage. When she meets Christian, a charismatic would-be actor, she can see he's trouble - not least because he's involved with an older woman who has children. She is drawn to him nonetheless: drawn into his world of unpayable debts and wild promises. First published in 1960, The Catherine Wheel is Elizabeth Harrower's third novel and the only one of her books not set in Australia. In it she turns her unflinching gaze on the grim realities of 1950s London, and the madness that can infect couples. Elizabeth Harrower was born in Sydney in 1928 and moved to London in 1951. She travelled extensively and began to write fiction. Her first novel Down in the City was published in 1957, and was followed by The Long Prospect a year later. In 1959 she returned to Sydney where she began working for the ABC and as a book reviewer for the Sydney Morning Herald. In 1960 she published The Catherine Wheel, the story of an Australian law student in London, her only novel not set in Sydney. The Watch Tower appeared in 1966. No further novels were published until May 2014 when Harrower's 'lost' novel, In Certain Circles, was released. Her work is austere, intelligent, ruthless in its perceptions about men and women. She was admired by many of her contemporaries, including Patrick White and Christina Stead, and is without doubt among the most important writers of the postwar period in Australia. Elizabeth Harrower died in Sydney on 7 July 2020 at the age of ninety-two. 'The Catherine Wheel is a great starting point for those new to Harrower's work, those readers who are unafraid to face the darker aspects of desire we're sometimes too ashamed to acknowledge.' 3am Magazine, Top Reads for 2015 'I love The Watch Tower, but I love The Catherine Wheel more. Like all the Harrower books, with their psychological mysteries, their droll humour, their brilliant language and ear for voices, The Catherine Wheel takes your hand from the first page and beckons you in.' Ramona Koval 'Rich and rewarding.' Starred review, Kirkus