'Written with unerring skill and insight, The Dyehouse is a masterly portrait of postwar Australia, when industrial work was radically transformed by new technologies and society changed with it. Mena Calthorpe—who herself worked in a textile factory—takes us inside this world, vividly bringing to life the people of an inner-Sydney company in the mid-1950s: the bosses, middlemen and underlings; their dramatic struggles and their loves.
'This powerful and affecting novel was first published in 1961, and is the hundredth book in the Text Classics series. The new edition comes with an introduction by Fiona McFarlane, acclaimed author of The Night Guest.' (Publication summary : Text Classic 2016)
'I found my second-hand copy of The Dyehouse among the glorious chaos of Gould's Book Arcade in Sydney's Newtown. I had never heard of Mena Calthorpe, but after reading the first line I knew I'd buy it: 'Miss Merton came to the Dyehouse one windy afternoon when smoke from the railway-yards drifted darkly over Macdonaldtown.' (Introduction)
