On a property in New South Wales, a man named Holland lives with his daughter Ellen. As years pass and Ellen grows into a beautiful young woman, her father announces his decision: she will marry the first man who can name all the species of the eucalypt, down to the last tree.

The author's first novel, "Homesickness", won both the National Book Council Award for Australian Literature and the "Age" Book of the Year Award. His subsequent novel, "Holden's Performance", won the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction.

About the Author
Murray Bail was born in Adelaide in 1941, and now lives in Sydney. His first novel, Homesickness, won the National Book Award for Australian Literature and the Melbourne Age Book of the Year Award. His subsequent novel, Holden's Performance, won the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction. His non-fiction includes an acclaimed monograph on the work of the painter Ian Fairweather.

Reviews
There is such delight in Eucalyptus, such strange and sly and swerving humour. Murray Bail is the warmest and quick witted of storytellers. You will never forget what is at the heart of this book: one of the great and most surprising courtships in literature
It's a masterpiece. A novel of high seriousness and higher playfulness that will scarcely be matched this year for the dexterity of its wit -- Michael Hulse * Spectator *
Bail tells a story which is encrusted with delicious detail, and writes in an affecting mood of rapt tenderness. The book will haunt its readers long after more perfectly-finished fictions have faded from their memories * Observer *
Eucalyptus is that rare thing: a book whose author has succeeded in harnessing the seductive format of the fairy story and transforming it into something quite distinctive - neither fantastical nor realistic, but an elegant, humane, funny and wise journey to the interior of the human heart -- Jane Shilling * Sunday Telegraph *
Tall trees inspire tall tales. Eucalyptus makes most other novels seem weedy by comparison. It is a towering achievement * Time Out *


Awards
Winner of The Commonwealth Writers Prize 1999 and The Commonwealth Writer's Prize Best Book South East Asia and South Pacific 1999. Short-listed for Miles Franklin Literary Award 1999 and Victorian Premier's Literary Award - Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction 1999 and APA Design Awards: Australian Paper Best Designed Hardback 1998 and Book Data/ABA Book of the Year Award 1998.



Book Information
ISBN 9781860464959
Author Murray Bail
Format Paperback
Page Count 272
Imprint The Harvill Press
Publisher Vintage Publishing
Weight(grams) 191g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 17mm