[In The Man Who Loved Children] Christina Stead has created what is extremely rare in modern literature: three archetypal characters who have a life of their own, independent of their author; characters like Dickens's Uriah Heep or Mr Micawber, who can be known to those who have never read the books in which they figure. This is particularly true of Sam Pollit, 'the man who loved children'. The ironical title defines him as the phrase 'humble as Uriah Heep' defines Heep. Figures who take on mythic proportions in a literature, who become part of its language, nearly always have a touch of caricature about them: they are always larger than life. Quite often they are not drawn in any depth at all—like the caricature, they acquire immortality with a few telling strokes. Sam Pollit however is drawn in great detail and in great depth, so that he...