AustLit
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Includes
-
28y
Ravenshoe
1861-1862
Z1191472
1861-1862
single work
novel
Ravenshoe, Kingsley's second novel has an Australian interest, though it is not set in Australia. 'It is the story of a West Country hero who befriends his groom; both men fall in love with the hero's cousin. As a result of a report (later revealed to be false) the hero loses the rights to his inheritance, then disappears, leads a low life in London, goes overseas, is rumored to be in Australia, and reappears many years later to claim his heritage. As Australian papers later pointed out, this plot was a fictionalized version of the real-life Tichborne saga, but remarkably the novel was published before that scandal broke. The Tichborne heir, Sir Roger Tichborne, fell in love with his cousin, disappeared, and was rumored to be on the Australian goldfields or drowned in South America. Castro, a butcher from Wagga, appeared to claim the title but was found to be an imposter. The claimant had been in Gippsland at the same time as Kingsley and was connected to the Bogong Jack bushranging gang, which Kingsley mentions in The Recollections of Geoffry Hamlyn.' (Patrick Morgan 'Henry Kingsley (1830-1876)')
London
:
J. M. Dent
,
1970
-
207y
The Man Who Loved Children
New York (City)
:
Simon and Schuster
,
1940
Z462160
1940
single work
novel
(taught in 19 units)
'Set in Washington during the 1930s, Sam and Henny Pollit are a warring husband and wife. Their tempestuous marriage, aggravated by too little money, lies at the centre of Stead's satirical and brilliantly observed novel about the relations between husbands and wives, and parents and children.
'Sam, a scientist, uses words as weapons of attack and control on his children and is prone to illusions of power and influence that fail to extend beyond his family. His wife Henny, who hails from a wealthy Baltimore family, is disastrously impractical and enmeshed in her own fantasies of romance and vengeance. Much of the care of their six children is left to Louisa, Sam's 14-year-old daughter from his first marriage. Within this psychological battleground, Louisa must attempt to make a life of her own.'
Source: Publisher's blurb (MUP).
London : David Campbell , 1995
