You can't help liking Letty Fox. She is the eponymous hero of this novel, and what a big, energetic, sprawling novel it is. Letty Fox, with brio and relish, describes her picaresque adventures in the New York and London of the 1930s and 1940s. She is surrounded by a family notable for its size, eccentricity and marital irregularities. Letty herself has many affairs but finds marriage elusive. Bizarre, satirical and imaginative, first published in 1947, this powerful portrayal of a woman who might have been independent but chose otherwise stands as one of Christina Stead's most impressive works. Christina Stead is much more than the author of "The Man Who Loved Children". To remind readers forcefully of this, "Faber Finds" is reissuing nine of her works: "The Beauties and Furies", "For Love Alone", "House of All Nations", "Letty Fox: Her Luck", "A Little Tea", "A Little Chat", "Miss Herbert", "The People with Dogs", "The Puzzleheaded Girl" and "The Salzburg Tales".