The Harp in the South Novels

Covering a span of over thirty years in the life of the Darcy family, these three iconic novels from Ruth Park take us from first love to hardship via outback Australia and the streets of Surry Hills. In Missus, we read about the adolescence and courtship of Hughie Darcy and the innocent Margaret in the dirt and dust of rural Australia. We next meet the pair in The Harp in the South, where they run a fleabitten boarding house in Surry Hills with their two daughters, Roie and Dolour. Making ends meet is hard in the slums of Sydney, and love is not kind to Roie as she takes her first steps into adulthood. Lastly we watch Dolour grow up all too fast in Poor Man's Orange, as Hughie and Margaret struggle to keep their relationship alive after so many years together. At times confronting, often affectionate, this is a remarkable portrait of an Australian working-class family of the time.