The Witch's Thorn
1951 novel by Ruth Park
 First edition | |
| Author | Ruth Park |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Publisher | Angus and Robertson |
Publication date | 1951 |
| Publication place | Australia |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 220 pp |
| Preceded by | Poor Man's Orange |
| Followed by | A Power of Roses |
The Witch's Thorn (1951) is a novel by Australian author Ruth Park.[1]
Plot outline
The novel is set in the fictional New Zealand North Island town of Te Kana. After the disappearance of her consumptive mother and the death of her beloved grandamother, Bethell Jury is adopted by her Aunt Amy whose husband is the local grocer and whose son is an unpleasant lout.
Critical reception
The initial press reaction to this novel was not good: The Advertiser (Adelaide) found "There is wonderful material in this for a colorful novel of New Zealand life, but Ruth Park resolutely sticks to the horror and the sordidness whose sensational exploitation marred her Sydney novels";[2] The Examiner (Launceston) was blunt in stating that " it is inspired by cruelty, disease, despair, blasphemy and death";[3] and The Sydney Morning Herald noted that The New York Times called it "unplotted and nervously episodic".[4]
Possibly in a sort of response to these views, Kirkus Reviews noted: "There's an unblinking realization of the rough and tumble of bare subsistence, of the good in the bad and the worst in the best of us that gives this a raw insistence which may repel or attract."[5]
See also
- 1951 in Australian literature
Notes
Dedication: For Charles Hutchinson: unforgotten.[1]
References
- v
- t
- e
Works by Ruth Park
- The Harp in the South (1948)
- Poor Man's Orange (1949)
- The Witch's Thorn (1951)
- The Muddle-Headed Wombat series (1962-82)
- Swords and Crowns and Rings (1977)
- Playing Beatie Bow (1980)
- The Bagman Stories (1943-48)
- I'll Meet You in Botany Bay (1945)
- Early in the Morning (1946)
- Far from the Land (1947)
- Stumpy (1947)
- The Harp in the South (1951)
- Gulliver's Cousin (1954)
- One Man's Kingdom (1957)
- A Little South of Heaven (1959)
- A Little South of Heaven (1961)
- No Decision (1962)
- The Harp in the South (1964)
- The Harp in the South (1986)
- Poor Man's Orange (1987)
- Playing Beatie Bow (1986)
- The Harp in the South (1949)
