The Tree of Man is the fourth published novel by the Australian novelist and 1973 Nobel Prize-winner, Patrick White.

[2] "When we came to live [in Castle Hill, Sydney]", White wrote, in an attempt to explain the novel, "I felt the life was, on the surface, so dreary, ugly, monotonous, there must be a poetry hidden in it to give it a purpose, and so I set out to discover that secret core, and The Tree of Man emerged.".

He would have liked to write some poem or prayer in the empty book, and for some time did consider that idea, remembering the plays of Shakespeare that he had read lying on his stomach as a boy, but any words that came to him were the stiff words of a half-forgotten literature that had no relationship with himself.The novel is one of three by White included in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.

James Stern of The New York Times wrote: "'The Tree of Man,' it seems to me, is a timeless work of art from which no essential element of life has been omitted.

"[5] In the Times one day later, Orville Prescott called it "the finest novel I have read so far in 1955, a majestic and impressive work of genuine art that digs more deeply into the universal experience of human living than all save a few great books.