''The Cardboard Crown'' (1952) is a novel by Australian writer
Martin Boyd
Martin à Beckett Boyd (10 June 1893 – 3 June 1972) was an Australian writer born into the à Beckett– Boyd family, a family synonymous with the establishment, the judiciary, publishing and literature, and the visual arts since the early 19t ...
. It is the first in the author's "Langton Tetralogy" (which comprises ''The Cardboard Crown'', ''
A Difficult Young Man
''A Difficult Young Man'' (1955) is a novel by Australian writer Martin Boyd. It is the second in the author's "Langton Tetralogy" (which comprises ''The Cardboard Crown'', ''A Difficult Young Man'', ''Outbreak of Love'' and ''When Blackbirds Sin ...
'', ''
Outbreak of Love
''Outbreak of Love'' is a 1981 Australian miniseries about Melbourne society just before World War I.
*Ed. Scott Murray, ''Australia on the Small Screen 1970-1995'', Oxford Uni Press, 1996 p. 220
*
*
References
External links''Outbreak of Love ...
'' and ''When Blackbirds Sing'').
[Austlit - ''The Cardboard Crown'' by Martin Boyd]
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Plot summary
The novel follows the story of Alice Langton, as told by her grandson Guy de Teba Langton, who pieces the story together from her diaries and family gossip. Alice is trapped in a life where her happiness is a secondary consideration among the rest of the family, who make continual demands on her money. Alice moves constantly between her homes in Australia and Europe, always longing for the home she does not inhabit.
Reviews
Geoffrey Hutton in ''The Argus'' noted that the author was writing a family saga of wealth and influence in Melbourne with a difference. "The prod-nosed social investigators may find some interesting sidelights here on the gilded life of the governing class in the 70's or the early affluence of East St Kilda before the parvenus flooded into Toorak. But Mr Boyd's only real interest is in the contrasting strains which appear in his oddly-mixed family and in the interaction between human frailty and unearned wealth.."
Gillian Dooley, writing in 2004 after the book had been re-issued, stated: "Boyd's subject matter is no doubt the principal reason for his neglect. By any standards, his prose is strong and luminous and his novels are beautifully crafted and immensely readable. But the late twentieth century had little patience with the scandals and vicissitudes of Anglo-Australian aristocratic families, with no apparent connections with convicts, sealers or whalers, or the indigenous people. Boyd was admittedly something of a good old-fashioned snob."
Note
Text Publishing
Text Publishing is an independent Australian publisher of fiction and non-fiction, based in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria.
Company background
Text Media was founded in Melbourne in 1990 by Diana Gribble and Eric Beecher, along wit ...
re-issued the novel in 2012 as part of its Text Classics series with an introduction by Brenda Niall
Dr Brenda Mary Niall (born 25 November 1930) is an Australian biographer, literary critic and journalist. She is particularly noted for her work on Australia's well-known Boyd family of artists and writers. Educated at Genazzano FCJ College, ...
.Text Publishing – ''The Cardboard Crown : Text Classics'' by Martin Boyd
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See also
* 1952 in Australian literature This article presents a list of the historical events and publications of Australian literature during 1952.
Books
* Martin Boyd – ''The Cardboard Crown''
* Jon Cleary – '' The Sundowners''
* T. A. G. Hungerford – '' The Ridge and the Rive ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cardboard Crown, The
1952 Australian novels
Novels by Martin Boyd
Novels set in Melbourne
Cresset Press books