Lighted Windows
Critical Essays on Robin Hyde

Edited by Mary Edmond-Paul

Key Points

• International perspectives on a significant writer of the 1920s and 30s.
• Deepens understanding of a woman writer’s predicament in a tiny intellectual circle
• Record of an early woman’s career in journalism
• An answer to the ‘empty-land school’ of New Zealand writing
• Will inspire readers to get to know Hyde’s work

Book

Robin Hyde, journalist, poet, novelist, war correspondent (from China, in 1938) and committed political figure, was central to the movements and debates of a volatile period in New Zealand society.

As a writer Hyde was not afraid to draw on her own experience of the dangers of new-found freedoms for women. This first critical study of the diverse writings of Robin Hyde includes new information on her life and work and studies that enlarge our understanding of a courageous yet vulnerable figure and the vitality, richness and wit of her writing.

Contents

Chronology Introduction: How the woman’s isle got its name 1 An island over the edge of the world: Robin Hyde’s Wednesday’s Children Michelle Elleray, Guelph 2 Running ever out of reach: carnival and fantasy on Wednesday’s island Renata Casertano, Italy 3 No alternative: Robin Hyde and the politics of loss Nadine Attewell, Cornell 4 Violence and the Psychology of Recklessness: Robin Hyde’s Passport to Hell Alex Calder, Auckland 5 Other pastures: death, fantasy and the Gothic in Robin Hyde’s short stories Alison Jeffries, Auckland 6 China, imagined and actual in Robin Hyde’s The Godwits Fly Diana Bridges, Wellington 7 Thoroughly Modern Malory Megan Clayton, Canterbury NZ 8 Archival Poetics: Michele Leggott reads Robin Hyde Susan Ash, Edith Cowan, Perth 9 When Iris met Eve: An Australasian friendship Brigid Magner, RMIT 10 Angel-guarded liar in a pleasant, quiet room Alison Hunt 11 Hyde’s parliamentary reports: journalism and initiation Nikki Hessell, Massey 12 Interviews with a ghost Jolisa Gracewood, New York Contributors Notes Bibliography Index

Editor

Mary Edmond-Paul has previously edited two anthologies (one of poetry and one of prose) and published Her Side of the Story (1999), which explored the importance of reading three women writers in terms of the material culture of which their work was part.

Literature, Criticism
paperback, 192 pp approx, some illustrations
ISBN 978 1 877372 58 2
$40.00

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