|
1960 In Australian Literature
This article presents a list of the historical events and publications of Australian literature during 1960. Events * The first Adelaide Writers' Week was held as part of the Adelaide Festival of Arts. Major publications Books * Thea Astley – '' A Descant for Gossips'' * Russell Braddon – ''The Proud American Boy'' * Nancy Cato – '' Green Grows the Vine'' * Jon Cleary – '' North from Thursday'' * Charmian Clift – ''Walk to the Paradise Gardens'' * Nino Culotta – '' Cop this Lot'' * Catherine Gaskin – ''Corporation Wife'' * Elizabeth Harrower – ''The Catherine Wheel'' * George Johnston – ''Closer to the Sun'' * Elizabeth O'Conner – ''The Irishman'' * Nevil Shute – '' Trustee from the Toolroom'' * Arthur Upfield – ''Valley of Smugglers'' * Joan Lindsay – ''Picnic at Hanging Rock'' (novel) Short stories * James Aldridge – ''Gold and Sand : Stories'' * Ion Idriess – ''The Wild North'' * John Morrison – "Dog-Box" * Hal Porter – "Part ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adelaide Festival Of Arts
The Adelaide Festival of Arts, also known as the Adelaide Festival, an arts festival, takes place in the South Australian capital of Adelaide in March each year. Started in 1960, it is a major celebration of the arts and a significant cultural event in Australia. The festival is based chiefly in the city centre and its parklands, with some venues in the inner suburbs (such as the Odeon Theatre, Norwood) or occasionally further afield. The Adelaide Festival Centre and River Torrens usually form the nucleus of the event, and in the 21st century Elder Park has played host to opening ceremonies. It comprises many events, usually including opera, theatre, dance, classical and contemporary music, cabaret, literature, visual art and new media. The four-day world-music event, WOMADelaide, and the literary festival, Adelaide Writers' Week, form part of the Festival. The festival originally operated biennially, along with the (initially unofficial) Adelaide Fringe; the Fringe has ta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trustee From The Toolroom
''Trustee from the Toolroom'' is a novel written by Nevil Shute. Shute died in January 1960; ''Trustee'' was published posthumously later that year. Plot summary The plot of the novel hinges on the actions of a modest technical journalist, Keith Stewart, whose life has been focused on the design and engineering of small and scale-model precision machinery. Stewart writes serial articles about how to build miniature machines in a magazine called the ''Miniature Mechanic'', which are extremely well regarded in the modelling community — as is he. Keith's sister had married a wealthy naval officer, recently retired from service at the opening of the story. The couple plan a long pleasure cruise in their small yacht before settling in British Columbia, meanwhile leaving their 10-year-old daughter with Keith and his wife. Before leaving, they ask Keith for assistance in hiding a jewelry box in the yacht's concrete ballast. When the couple are killed in a shipwreck in French Pol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lillipilly Hill
''Lillipilly Hill'' (1960) is a novel for children by Australian author Eleanor Spence. It was commended for the Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers in 1961. Story outline The novel follows the story of Harriet Wilmot and her family who go to live in a house in the NSW town of Barley Creek at the end of the nineteenth-century. They had previously lived in London and had inherited the house from a relative. Harriot is very accepting of the new country though the rest of her family struggles with the heat and isolation. The book is a coming of age story, not just for Harriet but for her brother Aidan and for the rest of the family as well. Critical reception Reviewing the Text Publishing release for ''Readings'' Alexa Dretzke was very happy to see the book re-issued and noted: "''Lillipilly Hill'' is still a compelling read and the characters are well developed. Though the odd word may be a little dated, girls who have loved the Our Australian Girl series will ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eleanor Spence
Eleanor Spence (1928–2008) was an Australian author of novels for young adults and older children. Her books explore a wide range of issues, including Australian history, religion, autism, bigotry, materialism and alienation. She was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2006 Australia Day Honours. Biography Eleanor Rachel Therese Spence was born on 21 October 1928 in Sydney, Australia. She attended the University of Sydney, gaining her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1949. During the next decade she worked as a teacher and as a children's librarian. These experiences led to her interest in writing for young people. Her first novel, ''Patterson's Track'', was published in 1958. Eleanor Spence was awarded the Children's Book Council of Australia, CBCA Book of the Year in 1964 for ''The Green Laurel'' and in 1977 for ''The October Child''. ''Me and Jeshua'' and ''The Family Book of Mary Claire'' received CBCA commendations, and ''Seventh Pebble'' won the Ethel Turner ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elyne Mitchell
Elyne Mitchell, Order of Australia, OAM (née Chauvel, 30 December 1913 – 4 March 2002) was an Australian author noted for the ''Silver Brumby'' series of children's novels. Her nonfiction works draw on family history and culture. Biography Sybil Elyne Keith Chauvel was born in Melbourne on 30 December 1913. She was the daughter of General Sir Harry Chauvel, Henry Chauvel, who was the commander of the ANZAC Mounted Division Australian Light Horse, Light Horse and Desert Mounted Corps in World War I, later famous for the charge at Beersheba. She was educated at St Catherine's School, Toorak. She married lawyer, and later parliamentarian, Thomas Walter Mitchell in 1935 and moved with him to the Snowy Mountains. He taught her to ski, and they had four children. Mitchell became a keen skier and horsewoman – in 1938 she won the Canadian downhill skiing championship, and according to Tom Wright, in 1941 she became the first woman to descend the entire western face of the Snowy Mou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Gunn (Australian Writer)
John Gunn (born 26 February 1925) is an Australian writer, sailor and aviator. Education Gunn attended Newington College aged 12 in 1937.Newington College Register of Past Students 1863–1998 (Syd, 1999) pp 75 He entered the Royal Australian Naval College as a cadet-midshipman in 1939. In 1946 he began training as a Fleet Air Arm pilot, serving in England and the Mediterranean. He returned to Australia in 1949 and attended Sydney University, aborting the study of medicine to start a family. Career Gunn and his young family moved to England, where he began his writing career. In 1957 they returned to Australia. He attained various positions including: *Literary guide and friend to the Australian Broadcasting Commission's children's programme. *Aviation correspondent for the ''Australian Financial Review'' Bibliography Novels * ''The Wild Abyss'' (1972) * ''Water Hazard'' (1995) Novels for children * ''Barrier Reef Espionage'' (1955) * ''Battle in the Ice'' (1956) * ''Gibra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tangara (novel)
''Tangara'' (1960) is a novel for children by Australian author Nan Chauncy, illustrated by Brian Wildsmith. It won the Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers in 1961. It was published in America in 1962 under the title ''The Secret Friends''. Plot outline A young girl, Lexie, finds a necklace which belonged to her great-great Aunt Rita. This leads to a friendship with Merrina, and Lexie comes to learn of the treatment of Tasmanian Aboriginal people. The novel is part fantasy and part historical fiction. Critical reception Katharine Scholes considers this one of the books that had a major impact upon her. "I first read this story about the friendship between two Tasmanian children - one white, one black - when I was 10 years old. My family had just moved from East Africa to Tasmania. The descriptions of the landscape and the magical feel to the story helped me see my new country as a place with imaginative and spiritual meaning. It made me feel more at home, which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nan Chauncy
Nan Chauncy (28 May 1900 – 1 May 1970) was a British-born Australian children's writer. Early life Chauncy was born Nancen Beryl Masterman in Northwood, Middlesex (now in London), and emigrated to Tasmania, Australia, with her family in 1912, when her engineer father was offered a job with the Hobart City Council. She attended St Michael's Collegiate School in Hobart. In 1914, the family moved to the rural community of Bagdad, where they grew apple trees. The bush setting of Bagdad, including a bushranger's cave, would inspire some of her future writing, and also a lifelong involvement with the Australian Girl Guides movement. Initially organising Guide meetings and camps at her brother's Bagdad property, Chauncy started her own Guide troop in Claremont where she worked as a women's welfare officer at the Cadbury's Chocolate Factory from 1925.Berenice Eastman'Chauncy, Nancen Beryl (Nan) (1900–1970)' '' Australian Dictionary of Biography'', Volume 13, Melbourne Univers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hal Porter
Harold Edward "Hal" Porter (16 February 1911 – 29 September 1984) was an Australian novelist, playwright, poet and short story writer. Biography Porter was born in Albert Park, Victoria, grew up in Bairnsdale, and worked as a journalist, teacher and librarian. A car accident just before the outbreak of World War II prevented him from serving in the armed forces. His first stories were published in 1942 and by the 1960s he was writing full-time. His 1963 memoir, ''The Watcher on the Cast Iron Balcony'', is regarded as an Australian masterpiece. His other works were less successful. The literary critic Laurie Clancy said: "Porter's novels are, with one exception, less successful than his stories, not least because his scorn for most of his characters becomes wearying over the length of a novel." The exception, Clancy thought, was ''The Tilted Cross'', a historical novel set in Hobart in the 1840s. On 24 July 1983 he was knocked down by a hit-and-run driver in Ballarat and rec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Morrison (writer)
John Gordon Morrison (29 January 1904 – 11 May 1998) was a British-born Australian novelist and short story writer. Life John Morrison was born in Sunderland, England on 29 January 1904. His interest in flora and the natural world saw him begin work at the Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens at the age of 14. After two and a half years there he went to work as a learner-gardener for a wealthy shipowner at East Boldon His first wife was Frances Jones (?-1967). They had two children: John, and Marie. He married his second wife, Rachel Gordon (?-1997), in 1969. Australia He migrated to Australia in 1923 and initially worked on sheep-stations in New South Wales. His first Australian job was in the garden of historic Zara Station at Wanganella, outback of Deniliquin. The wide open spaces gave him a sense of freedom: warm friendship with his mates imbued him with the confidence to explore the Australian working class milieu in his stories, and he determined to live out his life in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ion Idriess
Ion Llewellyn Idriess (20 September 18896 June 1979) was a prolific and influential Australian author. He wrote more than 50 books over 43 years between 1927 and 1969 – an average of one book every 10 months, and twice published three books in one year (1932 and 1940). His first book was ''Madman's Island'', published in 1927 at the age of 38, and his last was written at the age of 79. Called ''Challenge of the North'', it told of Idriess's ideas for developing the north of Australia. Two of his works, ''The Cattle King'' (1936) and ''Flynn of the Inland'' (1932) had more than forty reprintings. Biography Early years Idriess was born in Waverley, a suburb of Sydney, to Juliette Windeyer (who had been born as Juliette Edmunds in 1865 at Binalong) and Walter Owen Idriess (a sheriff's officer born in 1862, who had emigrated from Dolgellau, in Wales). At birth Ion Idriess's name was registered as "Ion Windeyer", although he never seems to have used this name. From his late te ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Aldridge
Harold Edward James Aldridge (10 July 1918 – 23 February 2015) was an Australian-British writer and journalist. His World War II despatches were published worldwide and he was the author of over 30 books, both fiction and non-fiction works, including war and adventure novels and books for children. Life and career Aldridge was born in White Hills, a suburb of Bendigo, Victoria. By the mid-1920s the Aldridge family had moved to Swan Hill, and many of his Australian stories are based on his life growing up there. He studied at the London School of Economics. He returned to Australia and worked for ''The Sun News-Pictorial'' in Melbourne from 1935 to 1938. In 1938 Aldridge moved to London, which remained his base until his death in 2015. During the Second World War, Aldridge served in the Middle-East as a war correspondent, reporting on the Axis invasions of Greece and Crete. Based on his experiences, he wrote his first novel ''Signed with Their Honour'' and the book was publi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
