The Harp in the South by Ruth Park

The Harp in the South

by Ruth Park

(Australian Classics)

Angus & Robertson, 1984, ISBN 0207142823, hardcover, dustjacket

Very Good Condition, a little edge and shelf wear, a little rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, previous owners inscription on front endpaper, dustjacket shows a little edge and shelf wear with a little rubbing and chipping to edges and corners (see photographs)

“Set in Surry Hills of the 1940s, Ruth Park’s award-winning novel of Sydney slum life, while evocative of an era, still touches and concerns the reader forty years on.
Though the setting is a dingy one, the prevailing atmosphere of the book is not of grey dreariness but of unquenchable life – tragic, comic, sordid and beautiful.  It is a crowded canvas, with the figures strikingly contrasted, often grotesque, but always alive.
the Darcy family hold the central interest: Rowena, whose progress through suffering to happiness provides the main theme; Mumma, patient and devoted, who somehow retains an essential purity of heart in spite of disillusionment and trouble; Hughie the drunken but well-meaning father; Dolour the schoolgirl sister; and the redoubtable Grandma, whose gusto and malice and Irish humour make her perhaps the most memorable figure in the book.”