The Tree of Man by Patrick White

The Tree of Man

by Patrick White

Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1956, 499 pages, hardcover, dust jacket

Very Good Condition with price clipped dust jacket (see photographs)

'The Tree of Man has an Australian background.  A young man at the turn of the century takes a wife and carves out a homestead in what at the time was wilderness, although so close to a growing city that eventually the city came out to swallow them up.

The story is as simple as any human lives can be.  As the years pass a family grows up around Stan and Amy Parker, the neighbors come and civilization creeps in.  There are momentous events and natural disasters - tempest, flood, fire, and drought - and there are the myriad small events and adventures that are encountered in any lifetime.  The writing is direct and lucid, with sensitivity toward all the sensuous beauties of the environment, but first of all The Tree of Man is a book about people, their lives, and their private dreams.'