The Glasshouse by M. Barnard Eldershaw (1936)

This is in one sense a phenomenal departure from the previous efforts of this joint author. Both A House is Built and Green Memory are novels set in Australia and among colonial families, involving their businesses, reputations, and generational life (including a few cataclysms). I wonder whether Marjorie Barnard or Flora Eldershaw came to the fore with this one, and imagine a more balanced share in the earlier two. It is one of a fascinating group of novels from the age of sea-travel: Virginia Woolf's The Voyage Out, V Sackville-West's No Signposts in the Sea and Katherine Anne Porter's Ship of Fools immediately come to mind as examples. This one is quite Woolfian in a sense, with a small group of characters, passengers on a freight ship in a contemporary 30s milieu, on a journey from Antwerp to Fremantle. Their small tragedies and comedies, their prepossessions and social sniping are recorded by the main character, a writer, whose efforts to distil what she imagines as their back-story are included in the novel. For its impressionism, simple poetic description, malicious comedy, and rich rushes of deeper sadness I value this book. Vastly more valuable than its non-existent reputation would imply.