Precise and Imprecise Geographies in Christina Stead's Seven Poor Men of Sydney

Abstract

This paper will examine the literary representation of space and place in Seven Poor Men of Sydney (1934), the first published novel of one of Australia's foremost writers, Christina Stead. Seven Poor Men of Sydney is held to be one of the most accurate and vivid representations of Sydney in modern Australian literature, but by focusing attention on where action actually takes place in the novel, this paper argues for a more nuanced understanding of Stead's literary geography. It shows how only a relatively small part of Sydney is actually described and how imprecisely described and vague locales occupy more textual space than the city itself, thereby throwing into contention accepted understandings of the relationship between Stead and her fictional settings.