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AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE

AN INTRODUCTION
Australian aborigines had lived in Australia for 40,000 years before the
whites’ discovery of the continent in 1770, April 23 by the English captain
James Cook. Aboriginal literature had not developed a system of writing at
the beginning of the colonial period owing to the aborigines upholding the
oral tradition. Thus, the first written accounts of the aborigines were made
by early European explorers. The first fleet landed in the shores of Australia
in 1788. The slowly rising literature of that time reflected the struggle of the
new settlers against the wild and natural environment of Australia.

EARLY WRITERS
William Dampier (1651-1715)
Born in England, explorer and navigator
One of the first English explorers to arrive at the Australian shores
Dampier’s narratives of his voyages were edited by John
Masefield in 1906
It’s believed that Dampier’s ship rescued Alexander Selkirk
(Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe ) from the Island where he was
isolated
Tucker James (1808-1888)

He is a convict
Famous for Ralph Rashleigh, a convict memoir; A squatter’s
record of the reminiscences of a convict
Subtitled The Life of an Exile
The protagonist is Ralph ‘Rashleigh’ because he acts rashly
The novel recounts the story of Ralph with picaresque elements
from his descent into crime before 1820 until his death at the
hands of aborigines in 1844

Marcus Clark (1846-1881)

Born in London and educated at Highgate

A contemporary and close friend of Gerard Manley Hopkins and
his brother Cyril Hopkins
Emigrated to Australia in 1863 and began to write for the
Australian press
Contributed to the Australian Monthly Magazine under the
pseudonym ‘Mark Scrivener’ and ‘Q’
Australian Monthly Magazine later became the Colonial Monthly
and here, he serialised his first novel Long Odds (1868-69);
revised for publication in book form in 1869
Set almost entirely in England, Long Odds recounts the tragedy of
Cyril Chatteris
Wrote for Argus , Australasian , the Humbug , the Australian
Journal etc
Clark’s most famous work His Natural Life was serialized in the
Australian Journal in 1870-72 and revised for publication in book
form in 1874
 Alternative title For the Term of His Natural Life was used in the
1882 edition of the revised version
Protagonist is Richard Devine, alias Rufus Dawes

Rolf Bolderwood (1826-1915)

Born in London, arrived in Australia in 1831

Ardent reader of Walter Scott
Articles published in the Cornhill Magazine
Contributions made in the Australian Town and Country Journal
made him famous
Serialisation of Bolderwood’s bushranging adventure Robbery
Under Arms (1882-83) in the Sydney Mail firmly established his
reputation as a writer
The protagonist is Dick Marston, a former bushranger awaiting
execution recounting the cautionary tale of his bushranger past

C. J. Dennis (1876-1938)

Poet
First book of verse was Backclock Ballads and Other Other Verses
Most famous work is the colloquial verse narrative Songs of a
Sentimental Block (1915) which earned him the title ‘Laureate of
the Larrikin’
Protagonist is Bill, the story revolves around the courtship and
marriage of Bill, a larrikin of Melbourne streets
Ginger Mick and Rose of the Spadgers are the other two important
characters
They also appear in other works by C.J. Dennis
William Charles Wentworth (1790-1872)

An Australian explorer educated in England

Most famous poem is Australasia (1823)
Rooted in Australian nationalistic pride, the poem begins with the
exclamatory line ‘Land of my birth!’
A.C.V Melbourne penned his biography William Charles
Wentworth in 1934
‘The Patriot of Australia – An Heroic poem in Ten Cantos’ a poem
by Charles Harpur has Wentworth as subject

Henry Savery (1791-1842)

Born in Somerset, England was a convict transported to Van

Diemen, Australia
Considered as the first Australian novelist and essayist
His autobiographical novel Quintus Servinton: A Tale Found Upon
Incidents of Real Occurrence (1831) is generally regarded as the
first Australian novel by reason of its place of publication and its
author’s residence
A three volume novel purports to be a fictionalised autobiography,
published anonymously has the elements of picaresque and
allegory dealing with the occurrences in human life and nature
The protagonist is the unnamed author who meets the 60-year-old
subject Quintus
It’s uncertain but it’s considered that Savery wrote the first book of
Australian essays The Hermit in Van Diemen’s Land under the
pseudonym ‘Simon Stukeley’
First appeared in weekly parts in Andrew Bent’s Colonial Times as
a series of 30 prose sketches
Joseph Furphy (1843-1912)

Contributed to the Bulletin first as ‘Warrigal Jack’ and from 1893

as ‘Tom Collins’
Most famous novel Such is Life: Being Certain Extracts from the
Diary of Tom Collins published in 1903
Posthumously published works include Rigby Romance (1946),
The Buln-Buln and the Bolga (1948)

Henry Handel Richardson (Ethel Florence Lindesay

Robertson) (1870-1946)

Elder daughter of emigrated parents

Famous for her novel trilogy The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney
(1930)
Australia Felix (1917) was the first volume in the trilogy; The Way
Home (1925), and Ultima Thule is the third instalment
Ultima Thule won the Australian Literature Society’s Gold Medal
in 1929
She also penned short stories

Ethel Turner (1873-1958)

Novelist and children’s writer

Followed the tradition of domestic fiction and gave importance to
middleclass interests and values
Best-known children’s novel is Seven Little Australians (1894);
The Family at Misrule (1895) is its sequel
The novel centres on the Woolcott family and the seven little
Australians are the seven children of Captain Woolcot, range from
 babyhood to adolescence

ABORIGINAL WRITERS
Jack Davis (1917-2000)
● Poet, short story writer, playwright and an activist for the
Aboriginal people
● Born into Nyoongah, a Western Australian aboriginal group and
brought up in the small town of Yarloop in Western Australia
● The First-Born and Other poems (1970) was his first book of
poetry
● The title poem begins with the famous line “Where are my first-
born said the brown land, sighing”
● Davis’s other important volumes of verse include Jagardoo: Poems
from Aboriginal Australia (1978), John Pat and Other Poems (1978),
and Black Life (1992)
● Kullark (1979) his first play focuses on the troubled relationship
between the whites and the Nyoongah tribe during the years 1829-30
● His second play is The Dreamers (1982)
● Old Worrun is a major character in The Dreamers . He recollects
the rich aboriginal past and contemns the intrusion of the white settlers
● His other plays No Sugar (1985) and Barungin: Smell the Wind
(1988) along with The Dreamers are performed as a trilogy, underthe
title The First Born
● Honey Spot (1987) and Moorly and the Leprechaun (1988) are his
plays for children
● He has written an autobiography of his childhood, A Boy’s Life
(1991)
● He was also an editor of Paperbark, a Collection of Black
Australian Writings (1990)
Faith Bandler (1918-2015)
● A descendant of South Sea Islanders
● A strong aboriginal activist
● Wacvi (1977) is a biographical novel about Wacvie Mussingkon,
Bandler’s father who was kidnapped from a village in the New
Hebrides and sold as a slave to a sugar plantation in Queensland
● Marani in Australia (1980) also recounts the story of her father
● Welou, My Brother (1984) is a story about her brother
● Welou, his mother Ivy and father Wacvie, and his brothers and
sisters are characters in this novel

● Her other writings include Turning the Tide (1988): A Personal

History of the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and
Torres Strait Islanders and The Time Was Ripe (1984) a history of the
Aboriginal people in Australia

Oodgeroo Noonuccal (1920-1993)

● Poet, artist and aboriginal activist hailed from Noonuccal tribe of
Stradbroke Island
● Found extreme pride in her people’s way of life. Known until 1988
as Kath Walker, she returned to her tribal name in the same year
● We are Going (1964) is her first volume of poetry
● The Dawn Is at Hand (1966) is her second volume of poetry
● Father Sky and Mother Earth (1981), Little Fella (1986) and The
Rainbow Serpent (1988) are her illustrated children’s books

Ruby Langford Ginibi (1934-2011)

● Born in Coraki, New South Wales
● Followed the path of her ancestors and lived the life of a tribe
● Don’t Take Your Love to Town (1988) is her first book and
autobiography written with the help of Susan Hampton gives voice to
the experience of the indigenous people of White Australia
● Don’t Take Your Love to Town won Human Rights Literary Award
of 1988 and the Pandora Women’s Writing Award of 1989
 ● Haunted by the Past (1999) tells the story about her son Nobby
who has been in and out of prisons since he was an adolescent
● All Ginibi’s Mob: Our Voices Collected (2011) is a book of verse.
It is a volume of 134 poems by 23 contributors collected and compiled
by Ginibi
● Her other books include Bundjalung People (1994) and All My
Mob (2007)

Sally Morgan (b. 1951)

● A renowned artist, aboriginal writer and dramatist
● Daughter of an aboriginal mother and a white soldier
● My Place (1987) is the controversial autobiography of Sally
Morgan
● Centers around her early childhood and shows how it was affected
by her family’s genealogy and the suppressive power of white
supremacy
● My Place won several awards and was a wide success
● Wanamurraganya (1989) is another major work by Sally Morgan;
it’s an account of Jack McPhee, a contemporary of her grandmother’s
life. She combines her own tribal grandfather's story with McPhee’s in
this work
● Sistergirl (1994) is a play about two old women, spending the end
of their lives in a hospital
● The alcoholic Aboriginal Rosy and an Irish woman Miss Murphy
are the two old women

Mudrooroo (Colin Johnson) (b. 1938)

● Novelist, essayist, aboriginal activist, poet and playwright born in
Narrogin, Australia
● Helped to initiate courses in Aboriginal Literature at several
Australian Universities
● He was one of the editors of Paperbark (1988),the first
comprehensive anthology of Aboriginal writing
● Wild Cat Falling (1965) is the first novel to be published by an
Aboriginal writer
 ● A young part-Aboriginal man’s search for identity and acceptance
in a white world which deems him as an outcast
● His redemption in life comes through his meeting with Old
Noongar, a tribal elder. He helps him to reconnect with the native
culture he has never been allowed to embrace
● Set in Fremantle prison, Wildcat Screaming (1992) is the
continuation of Wild Cat Falling
● Long Live Sandawara (1979) recounts the story of Alan a part-
Aboriginal youth
● Inspired by the heroic tales of the Aboriginal resistance fighter
Sandawara recounted by old man Noorak he attempts to establish his
own resistance movement in the slums of Perth
● George Augustus Robinson is a major figure in Doctor Wooreddy’s
Prescription for Enduring the Ending of the World (1983) and Master
of the Ghost Dreaming (1991)
● George Augustus Robinson was not a fictional character created by
Mudrooroo. He was appointed by Great Britain to act as a conciliator
between British settlers and the Tasmanian Aborigines
● Robinson’s attempt to ‘civilise’ the aborigines by teaching them the
nineteenth century European village values were futile
● In Master of the Ghost Dreaming , Mudrooroo uses ‘magic realism’
to establish Aborigines as the true winners in the spiritual sense
● Mudrooroo’s poetry satirises the White society
● His major volumes of verses include The Song Circle of Jacky
(1986), Dalwurra ( 1988), The Garden of Gethsemane (1991) and Old
Fellow Poems (2014)
● Writing from the Fringe (1990) is a study of modern Aboriginal
literature
● Doin Wildcat (1988) is an autobiographical narrative
● Big Sunday (1986), Mutjinggaba (1989) are his major plays

Kevin Gilbert (1996-96)

● Aboriginal activist, playwright, artist and poet born in Condobolin,
New South West to an Irish father and part-Aboriginal mother
● Murdered his wife after a domestic argument, found guilty in 1957
and sentenced to life imprisonment
 ● Paroled in 1971 after fourteen years in prison he became an
Aboriginal activist
● The Cherry Pickers (1988) written while he was in prison, first
performed in Sydney made him the first Aboriginal playwright to have
a play performed in Australia
● The play examines the close relationship of the Aboriginals with
their land and the Whites’ mistreatment of the nature
● In 1988 an extended and biting version of the play was published
for the Bicentenary. It contained a prologue in mock-heroic verse
● Bicentenary of Australia, celebrated in 1988 marked the 200 years
of the arrival of the first fleet. This celebration was widely viewed as
controversial
● Published several volumes of poetry include End of Dreamtime
(1971), People are Legends (1978) and The Black Side (1990)
● Living Black (1978) is a collection of interviews conducted by
Gilbert with Aborigines from all parts of Australia

Doris Pilkington Garimara (Nugi Garimara) (1937-2014)

● A member of the stolen generation (Aboriginal children forcibly
removed from their families)
● Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence (1996) is a captivating story based
on Doris Pilkington’s mother Molly and her cousin Gracie and sister
Daisy
● Uprooted from their community and forbidden to speak their
native language the three girls escape the government settlement by
following the rabbit-proof fence that stretches over 1,000 miles
through desert
● Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence is part of The Family Trilogy
● Caprice: A Stockman’s Daughter (1991) and Under the
Wintamarra Tree (2002) are the other two books in the Trilogy
● Home to Mother (2006) is an adaptation of Follow the Rabbit-
Proof Fence for children

Alexis Wright (b. 1950)

 ● Aboriginal writer won the prestigious Miles Franklin Award in
2007 for her novel Carpentaria (2006)
● Carpentaria centers on the powerful Phantom family at the coastal
town of Desperance
● Normal Phantom, Mozzie Fishman and and Normal’s son, Will
Phantom are the three major characters of the novel
● Plains of Promise (1997), The Dawn Book (2013) and Grog War
(1997) are her other novels

Kim Scott (b. 1957)

● A descendent of the Nyoongah tribe in Western Australia
● First Aboriginal author to win the Miles Franklin Award in 2000
(joint winner) for his novel Benang: From the Heart (1999)
● In 2011 he won both the Miles Franklin and the Australian
Literature Society Gold Medal for That Deadman Dance (2010)
● In Benang: From the Heart Harley Scat is the protagonist
● The novel is about forced assimilation and one’s attempt to
embrace his/her aboriginal roots
● Harley’s paternal grandfather and scientist Ernest Soloman Scat is
an important character whose experiments focus on ‘breeding out
colour’ from mixed/part-Aboriginal children to form ‘first white man’
● Young and clever Nyoongah man named Bobby Wabalanginy is
the central character of the novel That Deadman Dance
● Scott’s other novels include True Country (1993), Kayang and Me
(2005), Noongar Mambara Bakitj (2011)

PROMINENT POETS
Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833-70)
● In 1934 a bust of Adam Gordon Lindsay was unveiled in the Poets’
Corner of Westminster Abbey making him the only Australian poet to
have been thus honoured

● Born at Fayal in the Azores

● The famous ballad The Feud is his first published work

 ● Long dramatic poem on Faustian theme Ashtaroth is his second
published work

● Sea Spray and Smoke Drift (1867) first collection of poetry

● ‘Ye wearie Wayfarer’ is the major poem in the collection

● ‘The Roll of Kettledrum’, is a famous ballad in the collection

● ‘Hippodromania’’ is a poem in five parts about horses and the
importance of horse racing in Australia

● Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes (1870) is the second and an

important collection of poems
● ‘The Sick Stockrider’, ‘A Dedication’, ‘The Rhyme of Joyous
Garde’ etc are the major poems in the collection

Andrew Barton Paterson/ Banjo Paterson (1864-1941)

● A chief folk-poet of Australia

● Adopted the pseudonym ‘The Paterson’,’Banjo Paterson’ for his

early contribution to the Bulletin
● A spirited person and adventurer travelled to China to cover the
Boxer Rebellion

● A lover of horses and horse racing that eventually lead to his

famous equestrian ballads
● Editor of Sydney Evening News and The Australian Town and
Country Journal

● Paterson wrote Australia’s most famous bush ballad and unofficial

national anthem “Waltzing Matilda”(1895)
● The phrase ‘to waltz Matilda’ means to carry a bedroll on one’s
travels
 ● His early acquaintance with bushrangers, drovers (an experienced
stockman who moves livestock), and truck drivers helped him to
compose this ballad
● The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses (1895) is his first
collection of poems

● The theme of the poems originated from his love for horses and
taming of wild horses

● “Clancy of the Overflow”, “The Man from Iron Back”, “A Bush

Christening” and “The Travelling Post Office” are the major poems in
the collection

● Rio Grande’s Last Race (1902), Saltbush Bill J.P and Other Verses
(1917) etc are his other collection of verses
● He also wrote a book for children The Animals Noah Forgot
(1933)

● An Outback Marriage (1906) and The Shearer's Colt (1936) are his
two novels
● Semi- autobiographical work Happy Dispatches (1934) is based on
his reminiscences of his travels and adventures
● He also compiled the seminal anthology Old Bush Songs (1905)

● His other famous include “Old Man Platypus”, “On the Trek”,
“With the Cattle”, “There’s Another Blessed Horse Fell Down”,
“We’re All Australians Now”, “Behind the Scenes”

Judith Wright (1915-2000)

● Poet, literary critic, anthologist, editor, children’s writer, short story
writer, supporter of the Aboriginal land rights cause and
conservationist
● In 1992 she became the first Australian to receive the Queen’s
Gold Medal for Poetry

● Published in the Southerly , the quarterly journal of the Sydney

branch of English Association
● First volume of poetry The Moving Image (1946) takes its title
from Plato’s ‘Time is a moving image of eternity’
● ‘Bora Ring’, ‘South of My Days’, ‘Bullocky’, and ‘Remittance
Man’ are the main poems in the volume
● Themes from Australia’s past and her love for New England
● Woman to Man (1949) is the second volume of poetry

● The title has taken from the opening poem which gently talks
about the bond between man and woman as equals in the act of
conception

● The sequential poems ‘Woman’s Song’ and ‘Woman to Child’ are

compelling and talks about motherhood

● The third volume of poetry The Gateway (1953) deals with the
poet’s quest for self-knowledge
● The volume contains poems such as ‘The Cicadas’, ‘Train
Journey’, ‘Old House’, ‘The Journey’, and ‘Eroded Hills’
● Two Fires (1955) is a volume of poetry written at the time of the
Korean War

● Other chief volumes of poetry include City Sunrise (1964), Birds

(1962), T he Other Half (1966), Alive: Poems (1973), Fourth Quarter
and Other Poems (1976)
● The Flame Tree is a bilingual work which includes 15 poems
translated into Japanese by Nobuo Sakai and Judith Wright’s daughter
Meredith McKinney
 ● Kings of the Dingoes (1958), The Day the Mountains Played
(1960), The River and the Road (1966) are famous children's fiction by
Wright
● She also edited anthologies including A Book of Australian Verse
(1956), New Land, New Language (1957) and The Poet’s Pen (1965)
● In The Generations of Man (1959) Wright narrates her family’s
history in a blend of fiction

● It is based on Wright’s grandfather Albert Wright’s diaries and

personal reminiscences

● Wright’s grandparents Albert and May Wright and May Wright’s

parents and grandparents are the characters
● The Cry for the Dead ( 1981) is its sequel

● Because I was Invited (1975) is a collection of her essays and

reviews
● Preoccupations in Australian Poetry (1965) is a seminal book of
Australian poetic criticism
● AD Hope wrote the monograph Judith Wright (1968)

● The Cry for the Dead , We Call for a Treaty (1985) and Born of the
Conquerors (1991) reflect her struggle for the welfare of the
Aborigines

● The Coral Battleground (1977) and a book of essays Going on

Talking (1992) are stemmed from her love for nature and her role as a
conservationist
● Half a Lifetime (1999) is her memoir edited by Patricia Clarke

Henry Lawson (1867-1922)

Eminent Australian poet , fiction writer and bushranger
He is the son of Louisa Lawson, poet, suffragist and founder of the
first Australian feminist journal The Dawn
His first poem ‘A Song of Republic and his first short story ‘His
Father’s Mate’ were published in The Bulletin
‘The Drover’s Wife’ (1892), ‘The Loaded Dog’ (1901),’ A Child
in the Dark and a Foreign Father’ (1902), ‘The Bush Undertaker’
(1892) and ‘The Edge of a Plain’ (1893) are some of his famous
short stories
‘The Drover’s Wife’ is a story about a bush woman and her 4
children struggling to survive in the Australian outback with their
dog.

The Loaded Dog is a humorous short story about three gold miners
and their mischievously foolish dog Tommy
‘The Teams’, ‘Andy’s Gone with Cattle’, ‘The Roaring Days’,
‘The Watch on the Kerb’, ‘Faces in the Street’, ‘Freedom on the
Wallaby’, ‘The Army of the Rear’, are a few of his famous poems

The Arvie Aspinall is his first major fiction sequence

Short Stories in Prose and Verse was his first collection of works
While the Billy Boils (1896) is considered as his best prose
collection
Created the famous fictional characters Jack Mitchel, Steelman,
Andy Page and Jim Bentley

Jack Mitchel appears in about forty sketches and stories by

Lawson. He appears as a significant narrator in While the Billy
Boils
In the Days when the World was Wide is a collection of verse
In 1900 Lawson and Family went to England.
 While in England he was able to produce some of his finest works
like The County I Come from (1901), a selection of his previous
work Joe Wilson and His Mates (1901) and its sequence The
Children of the Bush (1902), Send Round the Hat (1907) and The
Romance of the Swag (1907)

The Rising of the Court and (1910) and Triangle of Life (1913)
published after his return from England
‘Elder Man’s Lane’ is a city series essays published in the Bulletin
from 1912-1920
A Fragment of Autobiography begun in 1903 recalls his life up to
1888
When I Was King (1905), The Skyline Riders (1910), For Australia
(1913), My Army, O, My Army (1910), and Song of the
Dardanelles (1916) are popular volumes of poetry
He was the first Australian writer to be granted a state funeral in
Australia

Christopher John Brennan (1870-1932)

Poet, scholar and eldest son of Irish-Catholic immigrants

Influenced by French Symbolists

First collection of verse was a booklet stereographed by himself in
eight copies titled XVIII Poems Being the First Collection of Verse
and Prose by Christopher Brennan (1897)
In the same year he also published XXI Poems (1893 – 1897)
Towards the Source
He was against the role of Australia in Boer War and saw Britain
as an overbearing imperial power
 Brennan’s chief volume of poetry Poems (1914) has three major
sections ‘Towards the Source’ (1894 – 97); ‘The Forest of Night’
(1898 – 1902); ‘The Wanderer’ (1902) and two concluding
segments, ‘Pauca Mea’ and ‘Epilogues’.
The major theme of Poems is man’s search for Paradise, the
Garden of Eden

Dorothea Mackellar (1885-1968)

Poet and fiction writer
She wrote the poem ‘Core of My Heart’ when she was 19 and it
got published in 1908 in the London Spectator . Later when
revised and published in her first book The Closed Door (1911) as
‘My Country’

‘My Country’ is a poem in six eight – line stanzas.

The beginning lines “The Love of field and coppice, of green and
shaded lanes” describes England and in the second stanza she
contrasts it with the beauty of her homeland
The second stanza of the poem “I love a sunburnt country…The
wide brown land for me!” is considered as the best – known stanza
in Australian poetry
Her volumes of poetry include The Witch-Maid (1914),
Dreamharbour (1923), and Fancy Dress (1926)
She wrote three novels The Little Blue Devil (1912), Outlaws Luck
(1913), and Two’s Company (1914), the first and last in
collaboration with Ruth Bedford

Kenneth Slessor (1901-1971)

Poet, Journalist and World War II correspondent
 First published volume of poetry Thief of the Moon (1924)

Other famous volumes of poetry include Earth-Visitors (1926),

Trio with Harley Mathews and Colin Simpson (1931), Cuckooz
Contrey (1932) Darlinghurst Nights and Morning Glories (1932)
and Five Bells (1939)
Bread and Wine (1970) is a collection of literary essays and other
prose writings
His famous poems Captain Dobbin and Five Visions of Captain
Cook deals with the role of memory and imagination in the
construction of myth
‘Five Bells’ is a famous poem, constitutes an elegy for Joe Lynch,
Slessor’s friend drowned in Sydney Harbour. ‘The five bells’
denotes a ship’s bell ringing five times
Appointed as an official war correspondent in 1939

Wrote War Diaries (1985) and War Dispatches (1987)

‘Beach Burial’ is an elegy for dead soldiers
‘An Inscription for Dog River’ is also a famous war poem

Compiled the 1945 anthology Australian Poetry and co- edited

The Penguin Book of Australian Verse (1958)
Edited the literary magazine Southerly between 1956 and 1961

Alec Derwent Hope (A.D. Hope) (1907-2000)

Poet, essayist and critic

One of Australia’s major poets

The first collection of verse was The Wandering Islands (1955)
Other major collections include Poems (1960), A.D. Hope (1963),
A Late Picking (1975), A Book of Answers (1978), The Drifting
Continent (1979), Antechinus (1981), The Tragical History of Dr
Faustus (1982), The Age of Reason (1985), Orpheus (1991)
The famous parody poem ‘His Coy mistress to Mr Marvell’
appears in the collection A Book of Answers (1978)

‘Dunciad Minor’ (1970) is a lengthy mock – heroic poem

Ladies from the Sea (1987) is a play by Hope
Chance Encounters (1992) is a collection of reminiscences

The Cave and the Spring (1965), Native Companions (1974), The
Pack of Autolycus (1978) and The New Cratylus (1979) are
collection of essays
He also wrote a study of Judith Wright
A Midsummer Eve’s Dream (1970) is a scholarly imaginative study
of a 16th century poem by William Dunbar
‘William Butler Yeats’ is a poem by Hope which deals with the
romantic heroic conception of the artist

Hope’s poems ‘Imperial Adam’ and ‘Paradise Saved’ deal with

Edenic Myth and are examples of Hope refashioning myth for his
own purpose

Hope’s poem ‘The End of a Journey’ puts Ulysses’ homecoming

in a bleak shadow

The story of red riding hood has given an unexpected twist in the
poem ‘Coup de Grace’
Love is a central theme in most of his works. ‘Chorale’, ‘The
Gateway’, and ‘The Lamp and the Jar’ are examples
 ‘Pygmalion’, ‘The Coasts of Cerigo’, ‘Fafni’, ‘The Damnation of
Byron’ and ‘The Dinner’ are a few of the important poems

Leslie Allan Murray (Les Murray) (b. 1938)

Poet, critic and anthologist Les Murray has won many awards
including the prestigious T.S Eliot Prize in 1996

The Ilex Tree (1965), The Weatherboard Cathedral (1969), Poems

Against Economics (1972), Lunch & Counterlunch (1974), The
Vernacular Republic (1976), Ethnic Radio (1977), The Boys Who
Stole the Funeral (1980), The People’s Otherworld (1983), The
Daylight Moon (1087), Dog Fox Field (1990) and Translations
from the Natural World (1992) are his major collections of poetry
His best reviews, articles and essays are collected in 4 prose
volumes The Peasant Mandarin (1978), Persistence in Folly
(1984), Blocks and Tackles (1990), and The Paperbark Tree (1992)
The New Oxford Book of Australian Verse (1986), Anthology of
Australian Religious Poetry (1986) are anthologies by Murray
Poems Against Economics (1972) is a composite of three
sequences
The Boys Who Stole the Funeral is a sequence of 140 sonnets. The
novel-in-verse narrates the story of two young men Kevin Forbutt
and Cameron Reeby who steal the dead body of Kevin’s great-
uncle Clarrie Dunn in order to carry out the old man’s wish to be
buried in his native place, an isolated spot named Dark’s Plain.

MAJOR FICTION WRITERS

Jean Devanny (1894-1962)
Fiction writer born in the South Island of NZ
 Joined the Communist Party of Australia in 1929
Butcher Shop (1926) was her first novel
Feminism and Socialism are the core subjects of the novel
The main characters Margaret and Barry Messenger appear to be a
perfect couple from the outside but the arrival of a third person,
Mr Glengarry changes everything
The book was banned when it reappeared with an introduction and
notes by Heather Roberts and an account by Bill Pearson in 1981
Butcher Shop (1926), Lenore Divine (1926), Dawn Beloved
(1928), Riven (1929) are the four novels Devanny published before
leaving NZ
Bushman Burke (1930), Devil Made Saint (1930) and Poor Swine
(1932) are the other three novels with settings in NZ
By Tropic Sea and Jungle (1944), Bird of Paradise (1945), and
Travels in North Queensland (1951) are some of her non- fiction
works
Socialist-realist novel Sugar Heaven (1936) deals with the strike
on Queensland canfields in 1935
Cindie (1949) is the only published book in the uncompleted
trilogy about the sugar industry
Her other novels are All for Love (1932), The Virtuous Courtesan
(1935), The Ghost Wife (1935), Paradise Flow (1938), The Killing
of Jaqueline Love (1942) and Roll Back the Night (1945)
Paradise Flow is also the title of a play by Devanny
Old Savage and Other Stories (1927) is a book of short fiction

Jessica Anderson (1916-2010)

Novelist and short story writer
An Ordinary Lunacy (1963), The Last Man’s Head (1970), The
Commandant (1975), Tirra Lirra by the River (1978) are her major
novels
Tirra Lira by the River won Miles Franklin Award and the
Australian Natives’ Association Literary Award
Stories from the Warm Zone (1987) is her collection of short
stories
 The Commandant (1975) is a historical novel based on the life of
Captain Patrick Logan
Tirra Lirra by the River tells the story of Nora Roche a bed ridden
woman in her seventies reminiscing the life she had, recalling and
key incidents and people in her life and attempting to come to
terms with the life she has now
The Impersonators deals with the story of an expatriate woman
rediscovering her homeland Australia

Nevil Shute Norway (1899-1960)

Novelist and aeronautical engineer Born in England, studied at
oxford University who spent his later years in Australia
Marazan (1926) was his first published novel under the
pseudonym ‘Nevil Shute’
Disdained (1928) and Lonely Road (1932) are his first successful
novels
Joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve on the outbreak of the
World War
Pied Piper (1942), Most Secret (1945), and Pastoral (1944) are
novels based on his experience in the World War
A Town Like Alice (1950) and Round the Bend (1951) are two of
the best-known novels by Shute
In A Town Like Alice , Noel Strachan an elderly lawyer narrates the
story of an English woman Jean Paget who in 1947 at the age of
27 inherits a small fortune from her uncle. Jean works in Malaya
during World War II and she becomes romantically interested in a
fellow prisoner an Australian soldier Sergeant Joe Harman. The
novel narrates the events in Jean’s life ending with her being able
to generate economic prosperity in a small outback community - to
turn it into a town like Alice Springs
Round the Bend tells the story of Tom Cutter a boy who loves
aeroplanes and his successful attempts to reach his goal of
becoming an entrepreneur
In 1950 Shute moved permanently to Australia which lead to the
publication of novels dealing partly or mainly with Australia.
 These novels include The Far Away Country (1952), In the Wet
(1953), Beyond the Black Stump (1956), On the Beach (1957),
Requiem for a Wren (1955), and the Rainbow and the Rose (1958)
On the Beach (1957) is a post-apocalyptic novel set in 1963 during
Nuclear World War III. The remaining survivors in Southern
Australia is awaiting their certain death by a radioactive cloud that
is heading their way

Morris West (1916-1999)

Australian novelist and playwright
First work Moon in my Pocket (1945) was a semi-autobiographical
novel published under the pseudonym ‘Julian Morris’
The Devil’s Advocate (1959) and Children of the Sun (1957)
brought him wide attention as an international best-selling author
In The Devil’s Advocate a dying English priest Father Blaise
Meredith is sent from the Vatican to investigate the life and death
and rumours and lies that surround Giacomo Nerone, a local
recommended for sainthood
The Shoes of the Fisherman (1963), The Clowns of God (1981),
Lazarus (1990) consist the Vatican Trilogy
McCreary Moves in (1958), The Naked Country (1960), were
published under the pseudonym ‘Michael West’
West has also written plays some of which are dramatized version
of his novels – ‘The Illusionists’ (1955), The Heretic (1969),
Daughter of Silence (1962), and The World Is Made of Glass
(1982)
Won many awards including the Black Memorial Prize

David Malouf (b. 1934)

Known primarily as a poet Malouf is an Australian writer of great
depth
His volumes of verses include Bicycle and Other Poems (1970,
Neighbours in a Thicket ( 1974), Wild Lemons (1980), First Things
Last (1980)
Johnno (1975), An Imaginary Life (1978), Harland’s Half-Acre
(1984), The Great World (1990), and Remembering Babylon
(1993) are some of his famous novels
His first novel Johnno, a semi-autobiographical work traces
childhood and early life of the narrator. At the age of 13 the
narrator befriends Johnno. Friendship with the vibrant, reckless
and a rebellious Johnno changes the narrator’s life. Johnno gives
the narrator the name ‘Dante’
In the beginning of the novel now a grown- up Dante happens to
see a photograph of his friend Johnno. This makes him recall a
lifetime of memories which lead to the writing of Johnno’s story
An Imaginary Life is a novella which narrates the story of Publius
Ovidius Naso ‘Ovid’ who was the most urbane poet of Rome,
banished to a remote village on the edge of the Black Sea and his
strangely maturing relationship with a wolfchild who has grown
up among deer
Frank Hartland is the central character of the novel Harland’s
Half-Acre . He’s the head of an all-male household of Irish
Descent
It is a chronological narrative covering several decades and is a
study of artist-figure
The Great World , winner of the 1991 Miles Franklin Award
narrates the World War II experiences of two men, Digger Keen
and Vic Curran
Set in mid-nineteenth-century, Remembering Babylon tells the
story of a thirteen-year-old British cabin boy Gemmy Fairley who
moves back into the world of Europeans after living among the
Australian aborigines for 16 years
Malouf has written four novellas, including Child’s Play (first pub
in 1981)
Child’s Play contains a novella and two short stories first
published in 1981 is about an international terrorist who plans to
assassinate a major writer in contemporary Italy
Fly Away Peter (1982) tells the crucial story of Jim Saddler a
birdwatcher who becomes drawn into the World War I. Ashley
 Crowther his employer and Imogen Harcourt, an eccentric English
photographer are important characters
12 Edmonstone Street (1985) is a group of autobiographical essays
Blood Relations (1988) is a play which uses dream sequences and
inner dialogues and Antiope (1985) is a collection of short stories
Ransom (2009) is a retelling of Iliad from book 22 to 24
Earth Hour (2014) is a poetry collection
Dream Stuff (2000) is a collection of short stories
The Conversations at Curlow Creek (1996) is a historical novel

Patrick White (1912-1990)

Eminent Australian writer
Happy Valley (1939) was his first published novel
The Living and the Dead (1941), his second published novel set in
London during the 1930s tells the story of the Standish Family
The Ham Funeral (1947) is an expressionistic play published in
Four Plays (1965)
Other plays in the collection of plays Four Plays include The
Seasons at Sarsaparilla , A Cheery Soul and Night on Bald
Mountain
The Aunt’s Story (1948) a novel in 3 parts tells the story of
Theodora Goodman The first part of the novel begins and ends
with her mother’s death. The Second part of the novel is titled
Jardin Exotique. The third part ends with Theodora realizing that
the ultimate lucidity she always wanted to acquire in life isn’t
necessarily a perpetual alignment
The Tree of Man (1955), Voss (1957), Riders in the Chariot (1961),
The Solid Mandala (1966), The Vivisector (1970), The Eye of the
Storm (1973), A Fringe of Leaves (1976), The Twyborn Affair
(1979), and Memories of Many in One (1986) are his major novels
The novel The Tree of Man narrates the incidents in the lives of
Stan and Amy Parker from 1880s to 1930s
Voss winner of the Miles Franklin Prize in 1957 tells the story of
Voss a wilderness explorer whose experience has affinities with
that of Ludwig Leichardt a nineteenth century Prussian explorer
who disappeared while on an expedition to cross the Australian
continent
Laura Trevelyan, an intelligent woman who dares Voss to a
‘wrestling of the minds’, Palfreyman an ornithologist, Harry
Robarts , Frank Le Mesurier, and Turner are the members of
Voss’s expedition team; Ralph Angus and an emancipated convict
Judd also join them
The expedition kills everyone including Voss except Laura and
Judd
Riders in the Chariot won the Miles Franklin Award in 1961 tells
the story of four ‘illuminates’; Mary Hare, Mordecai Himmelfarb,
Ruth Godbold, and Alf Dubbo. These four people are connected
by a mystic experience of the chariot described in the Book of
Ezekiel
The climax scene in the novel is the mock crucifixion of Mordecai
Himmelfarb who is a Jewish refugee from Germany while an
aborigine says three times that he does not know the victim
The novel The Solid Mandala divided into 4 sections narrates the
story of two brothers Arthur and Waldo Brown who are conflicting
in every move and every decision they make
The Vivisector tells the story of the eminent artist Hurtle Duffield
who uses his sister’s deformity, a grocer’s midnight indiscretion
and passionate illusions of the woman who loves him as fodder for
his art
White won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1973
The Eye of the Storm narrates the last days of Elizabeth Hunter an
ex-socialite in her eighties. She had a mystical experience during a
summer storm in Sydney which transforms all her relationships.
Even in her death bed she commands respect and admiration from
those around her
A Fringe of Leaves is a novel based on the adventures of Mrs Eliza
Fraser. The protagonist of the novel Ellen Roxburgh and her
husband Austin journeys back to England after visiting Austin’s
reprobate brother Garnet in Van Dieman’s Land. Their ship
capsizes and Ellen the only survivor of the wreck is recused by the
aborigines. Issues of race, class, civilization and the true meaning
 of freedom and love are questioned. Jack Chance an escaped
convict is a major character
The Twyborn Affair is a novel in three parts, set before World War
I, in the interwar period, and in the period right up to World War
II. Eddie or E is the protagonist for whom sexuality is
problematical. Eddie has a male body and female consciousness
The Hanging Garden is an unfinished novel published
posthumously in 2012
The Ploughman (1935), The Burnt Ones (1964) and The
Cockatoos (1974) are collections of short stories
Flaws in the Glass , his autobiography published in 1981 gives a
frank insight into the issues such as his homosexuality and his
refusal to accept the Nobel Prize personally

Thomas Keneally (b. 1935)

Australian novelist, playwright
The Place at Whitton (1964) was his first novel
The Fear (1965) Keneally’s second novel has republished in
condensed form as By the Line (1989)
Bring Larks and Heroes (1967) Keneally’s first major successful
novel won Miles Franklin Award for that year. Phelim Halloran a
corporal in the marine detachment guarding the prisoners in a
penal colony at ‘the world’s worse end’ is the protagonist of the
novel
Three Cheers to the Paraclete (1968), The Survivor (1969), A
Dutiful Daughter (1971), The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1972),
Blood Red, Sister Rose (1974), Gossip from the Forest (1975),
Seasons in Purgatory (1976), A Victim of the Aurora (1977),
Passenger (1979), Confederates (1979), The Cut Rate Kingdom
(1980), and Schindler’s Ark (1982) are his major novels
Three Cheers to the Paraclete is a Miles Franklin Award winning
darkly satirical novel about a catholic priest, Father Maitland
attacking the church for its indifference to social evil
The Survivor is a novel about a survivor remembering a disastrous
Arctic expedition
 A Dutiful Daughter is an expressionistic account of the Glover
family with two normal children and their parents who are bovine
from waist down
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith is a fictional recreation of the
experiences of Jimmy Governor a part- aborigine who committed
several murders and was captured and hanged early in 1901
Part- aboriginal Jimmie Blacksmith rejects his heritage and
attempts to become a part of the European society. As a part of the
plan he marries a White girl, Gilda. All of his attempts became
futile and his supressed rage at the repressive White society forces
him to become a criminal
Blood Red, Sister Rose is a novel based on the life of Joan of Arc
concentrating largely on the Maid’s lifting of the siege of Orleans
and an insight into the ‘voices’ she heard
Gossip from the Forest narrates the incident that took place at the
end of World War I when 6 men meet to negotiate an end to the
terrible slaughter of the First World War
A Victim of Aurora combines the adventure of Antarctic
exploration as in The Survivor with a classic murder mystery
Keneally’s most famous novel Schindler’s Ark won Booker Prize
in 1982. Inspired by the Holocaust survivor Poldek Pfefferberg
who gave Keneally the files on Oskar Schindler
Schindler is a German industrialist who used his enormous fortune
to build a factory near the concentration camp and saved the lives
of over 1,300 Jews
Childermas (1968), An Awful Rose (1972), and Bullie’s House
(1981) are his plays
The Widow and Her Hero (2007), The People’s Train (2009), The
Daughters of Mars (2012), Shame and the Captives (2013),
Napoleon’s Last Island (2015) are his recently published novels

Peter Carey (b. 1943)

Australian novelist and short story writer, Booker Prize winner
who also won The Miles Franklin Award three times
 First novel, Bliss (1981) winner of the Miles Franklin Award tells
the story of Harry Joe, Owner of an advertising agency, aged 39
experiences a severe heart attack and dies for 9 minutes. The
incident changes his life forever. Honey Barbara, a pantheist,
healer and a prostitute is a major character
139-year-old Herbert Badgery is the narrator of the novel
Illywhacker (1985) He comically narrates with frequent
digressions the history of himself and many others he met in his
life
Oscar and Lucinda (1988) the Booker Prize winning novel
narrates the story of Lucinda Leplastrier, a young heiress, who
owns a glass factory and Oskar Hopkins a young clergyman.
Oscar’s great grandson Bob is the narrator of the novel. Lucinda
and Oskar are gamblers who meet on a ship and Lucinda bets
Oscar her inheritance that he cannot transport glass church to a
remote place
Jack Maggs (1997) is a reworking of Charles Dickens classic
novel Great Expectations. Jack Maggs and his son Henry Phipp
are equivalents of Magwitch and Pip from Great Expectations
Jack Maggs is an ex-convict returned illegally to London from
Australia in search of his son Henry Phipps
True History of the Kelly Gang (2000) winner of Booker Prize and
Common Wealth Writer’s Prize in 2001 is a historical novel
Divided into thirteen parts the historical novel is an autobiography
of the protagonist Ned Kelly the bushranger, convict but a hero to
his own people
Steve Hart and Joe Byrne are the other members of the ‘Kelly
Gang’
Parrot and Olivier in America (2009) was on shortlist of 2010
Man Booker Prize
The Fat Man in History (1974), War Crimes (1979), Exotic
Pleasures (1980) are his short story collections
His other novels include The Tax Inspector (1991), My Life as a
Fake (2003), His Illegal Self (2008), The Chemistry of Tears
(2012) and Amnesia (2014)

Germaine Greer (b. 1939)

 Writer, theorist and academic
Co-founder of the controversial magazine Suck and contributor to
periodicals include Spectator , Listener , Oz , Rolling Stone and
Esquire
Her influential feminist book The Female Eunuch (1971) analyses
the female sexual stereotypes. The book was a vital influence on
the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s
The book begins with a study of the female body. In the second
section titled ‘soul’, Greer examines how female stereotype is
processed in our society. Third section titled ‘love’ examines and
criticizes from ‘Romance’ to ‘Middle-Class’ myth of ‘Love and
Marriage’. In the fourth section ‘Hate’ discusses how sexes react
to each other, and the last section ‘Revolution’ Greer suggests
some sexual alternatives which are capable of freeing sexes from
sexual stereotypes
The Whole Woman (1999) is the sequel to The Female Eunuch
The Obstacle Race (1979) discusses the obstacles a female has to
face in the professional field of painting
Sex and Destiny (1984) is an account of the politics of human
fertility
Daddy We Hardly Knew You (1989) is her autobiography
The Change (1991) is an account of cultural, medical, and
psychological aspects of women’s menopause
The Madwoman’s Underclothes (1986) a collection of her essays
and articles
Edited The Uncollected Verse of Aphra Behn (1989),
Kissing the Rod (1988) is an anthology of seventeenth century
women’s verse
Shakespeare’s Wife (2007) is a book about Anne Hathaway,
Shakespeare’s wife

Tim Winton (b. 1960)

Australian writer
An Open Swimmer (1982) was his first novel
Shallows (1984) won The Miles Franklin Award
 Cloudstreet (1991) winner of Miles Franklin Award in 1992,
chronicles the lives of two working class families; The Pickles and
The the Lambs
Other novels include In the Winter Dark (1988), That Eye, the Sky
(1986), Blood and Water (1993)
Scission (1984), and Minimum of Two (1987) are collection of
short stories

Richard Flanagan (b. 1961)

Australian novelist from Tasmania
Death of a River Guide (1994) was his first novel
The Sound of One Hand Clapping (1997), Gould's Book of Fish
(2001) The Unknown Terrorist (2006), Wanting (2008), The
Narrow Road to the Deep North (2013) are his other novels
Narrow Road to the Deep North won the Man Booker Prize of
2014
Dorrigo Evans, the protagonist of the novel is an Australian doctor
who is haunted by a love affair with his uncle’s wife. The title is
taken from the seventeenth century haiku poet Basho’s travel
journal, The Narrow Road to the Deep North