User:Lucy1958
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House of All Nations is a 1938 novel by Christina Stead, set in the world of finance, in the uneasy period between the wars. The plot concerns intrigue at a merchant bank, a bank ‘made of air’, which, in the end, collapses. In Stead’s obituary in The Times the novel was described as
a massive and superbly constructed story of greed and money, supported by impressive documentation about the financial world … and with two memorable portraits in depth. Here Christina Stead made fruitful use of her reading of Zola, and produced a novel worthy of him. Yet at the time it went entirely unrecognised as a masterpiece[1].
Author | Christina Stead |
---|---|
Language | English |
Genre | Satire, Political fiction, Novel |
Publisher | Charles Scribner's Sons |
Publication date | 1938 |
Publication place | Australia |
Media type | Print (hardback and paperback) |
Pages | 127 pp |
ISBN | 978-0-684-80122-3 |
OCLC | 33134129 |
813/.52 20 | |
LC Class | PS3515.E37 O4 1995 |
Preceded by | Seven Poor Men of Sydney |
Followed by | The Man Who Loved Children |
While perhaps not labelled a masterpiece, it was the only one Stead’s books that, at least in the United States, was both a critical success [2] and a reasonably big seller on first release, and it is now ranked as one of her best works, although modern readership is probably small.