Eric Frank Lambert (19 January 1918 – 16 April 1966) was an Australian author and a sometime member of the

Communist Party of Australia The Communist Party of Australia (CPA), known as the Australian Communist Party (ACP) from 1944 to 1951, was an Australian political party founded in 1920. The party existed until roughly 1991, with its membership and influence having been i ...

Early life

Born in London in 1918, Eric Lambert emigrated to Australia at the age of 2 with his parents – they settled in Manly, Sydney. He left school at the age of 17 and worked in a garage having been denied the grammar school and university education he hankered after. In 1940 he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force. He saw action in the Middle East with the 2/2nd Machine Gun Battalion (January 1941 – October 1942) and the 2/15th Battalion (to January 1943). From August 1943 he was in

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

with the 2/15th, returning home in March 1944. While in Singapore (September – October 1945) assisting the repatriation of prisoners of war from Changi, he was promoted to Sergeant. He was discharged in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

on 7 December 1945. Determined to work for the cause of peace, soon meeting and joining forces with

Frank Hardy Francis Joseph Hardy (21 March 1917 – 28 January 1994), published as Frank J. Hardy and also under the pseudonym Ross Franklyn, was an Australian novelist and writer. He is best known for his 1950 novel '' Power Without Glory'', and for his ...

, who was at a similar stage with his first novel, ''Power without Glory''. Hardy persuaded him to join the Communist Party.

Writing career

He started writing on a

Commonwealth Literary Fund The Commonwealth Literary Fund (CLF) was an Australian Government initiative founded in 1908 to assist needy Australian writers and their families. It was Federal Australia's first systematic support for the arts. Its scope was later broadened to e ...

grant and self-published his first novel ''The Twenty Thousand Thieves'' which was later taken up by Frederick Muller Ltd. London, in 1952. It was based on his memories of

WWII World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and despite of getting caught up in the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

politics of the time, it sold three-quarters of a million copies.

Realist Writers

With

and

Stephen Murray-Smith Stephen Murray-Smith AM (9 September 1922 – 31 July 1988) was an Australian writer, editor and educator. Early life and education Murray-Smith's father ran a lucrative business shipping Australian horses to India for the armed forces. It ena ...

, Lambert co-founded the Melbourne Realist Writers Association and collaborated with its members to edit and produce its journal, the ''Realist Writer''. In the mid 1950s, he was a co-founder of the journal '' Overland''. In 1955 he attended the

World Assembly for Peace In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

in Helsinki and afterwards stayed on in London. Hearing of disturbing events in Hungary, he crossed the border without a visa during the 1956 uprising and was horrified by the aggression of the Soviets against the young people who were demonstrating for independence and peace. Back in London, he attempted to get his reports published in the Communist Party press, but to no avail and left the Party embittered with communism. Instead, he wrote about events in Hungary for ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

'', much to the chagrin of his former communist colleagues.

Later life

He had continued writing throughout his time in Europe, and apart from drawing further on his war experience he also dealt with the

Eureka Stockade The Eureka Rebellion was a series of events involving gold miners who revolted against the British administration of the colony of Victoria, Australia during the Victorian gold rush. It culminated in the Battle of the Eureka Stockade, which ...

, in ''The Five Bright Stars'' (1954) and

Ned Kelly Edward Kelly (December 1854 – 11 November 1880) was an Australian bushranger, outlaw, gang leader and convicted police-murderer. One of the last bushrangers, he is known for wearing a suit of bulletproof armour during his final shootout wi ...

in ''Kelly'' (1964). He remarried in March 1963 to Phyllis Hogarth. Lambert formerly adopted Hogarth's daughter and Phyllis gave birth to their own daughter, Francesca, in early 1964. He was devoted to them and although he had recurrent ill-health, depression and alcohol abuse, being a father provided him with much happiness. Sadly, he later died of acute hypertensive heart failure (due to alcoholism) in April 1966 in Little Maplestead, Essex.

Bibliography

Extant articles

– some of the ones written whilst a member of the Realist Writers group, Melbourne Branch *(

947 Year 947 ( CMXLVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * Summer – A Hungarian army led by Grand Prince Taksony campaigns in Italy, heading ...

953) 'Guns', Jindyworobak Anthology, Melbourne : Jindyworobak. *(1950) 'Dinner at Moussa's’, Meanjin, Winter 1950:93–97. *(1951) 'Wings of the morning', Meanjin, Summer 1951:325-30. *(1951) 'The book', Meat Industry Journal, Mar–Apr 1951:6. *(1951) 'Owners', Maritime Worker, May 1951:2. *(1952) 'Why we need this book society', Meanjin, v 11, n 1, 1952:293–4. *(1952) 'You write because you live', Realist Writer, Sept–Oct 1952:7–8,16. *(1952) 'The craft of writing', Realist Writer, Nov–Dec 1952:8–11. *(1954) 'My old Australian mate', Tribune, 7.4.54:7.

Novels

*(1951) The Twenty Thousand Thieves, Melbourne : Newmont. (self-published but later taken up by Frederick Muller Ltd. London; now in its 11th print with Penguin, Australia) *(1954) The Veterans, London : Shakespeare Head. *(1955) The Five Bright Stars, Sydney : Australasian Book Society. *( 956963) Watermen, London : Brown, Watson Ltd. *(1958) The Dark Backward, London : Frederick Muller Ltd. *(1959) Glory Thrown In, London : Frederick Muller Ltd. *(1960) The Rehabilitated Man, London : Frederick Muller Ltd. *(1962) Ballarat, London : Frederick Muller Ltd. *(1963) Dolphin, London : Frederick Muller ltd. *(1963) The Drip Dry Man, London : Frederick Muller Ltd. *(1963) Diggers Die Hard, London : Fleetway Colourbacks. *(1964–1966) Kelly, London : Corgi Books. *(1964–1965) A Short Walk to the Stars, London : Corgi Books. *(1965) The Tender Conspiracy, London : Frederick Muller Ltd. *(1965) MacDougal's Farm, London : Frederick Muller Ltd. *(1965–1968) The Long White Night, London : Corgi Books. *(1967) Hiroshima Reef, London : Frederick Muller Ltd. *(1967) Mad With Much Heart, London : Frederick Muller Ltd.

Works published under known pseudonyms

*Lambert, Eric as Frank Brennan (1960a) Oscar Wilde, London : Landsborough Publications, Four Square Books. *Lambert, Eric as Frank Brennan (1960b) Sink the Bismarck, London : Landsborough Publications, Four Square Books. *Lambert, Eric as Frank Brennan (1961) North to Alaska, London : Landsborough Publications, Four Square Books.

Biography

Title: Desolate market : a biography of Eric Lambert Author: Zoe O'Leary Publication Details: Sydney : Edwards & Shaw, 1974. Language: English Identifier:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lambert, Eric 1918 births 1966 deaths British emigrants to Australia 20th-century Australian novelists Australian male novelists Writers from Sydney Communist Party of Australia members