Peter Allen Ryan MM (4 September 1923 – 13 December 2015) was a newspaper columnist, author,

World War II 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 ...

spy, director of

Melbourne University Press Melbourne University Publishing (MUP) is the book publishing arm of the University of Melbourne. History MUP was founded in 1922 as Melbourne University Press to sell text books and stationery to students, and soon began publishing books itself. ...

and an officer of the

Victorian Supreme Court The Supreme Court of Victoria is the highest court in the Australian state of Victoria. Founded in 1852, it is a superior court of common law and equity, with unlimited and inherent jurisdiction within the state. The Supreme Court compri ...

Life and career

The son of the

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

veteran and VFL footballer Emmett Ryan, Peter Ryan was educated at Malvern Grammar School, near his home in

Glen Iris Glen Iris may refer to: *Glen Iris, Victoria, Australia *Glen Iris, Western Australia A glen is a valley, typically one that is long and bounded by gently sloped concave sides, unlike a ravine, which is deep and bounded by steep slopes. Whit ...

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 ...

's eastern suburbs. He left school at 16 to work in the Victorian public service, but as soon as he turned 18 he enlisted in the army to fight in

. He served as an intelligence operative behind enemy lines in New Guinea for eighteen months, much of the time alone. He was awarded the

Military Medal The Military Medal (MM) was a military decoration awarded to personnel of the British Army and other arms of the armed forces, and to personnel of other Commonwealth countries, below commissioned rank, for bravery in battle on land. The award ...

and

mentioned in despatches To be mentioned in dispatches (or despatches, MiD) describes a member of the armed forces whose name appears in an official report written by a superior officer and sent to the high command, in which their gallant or meritorious action in the face ...

. His 1959 book ''Fear Drive My Feet'' is his famous account of his experiences. On his return to Australia, he served under Alf Conlon at the

Directorate of Research and Civil Affairs The Directorate of Research and Civil Affairs (DORCA) was a mysterious and difficult-to-categorise think tank and possibly intelligence organisation within the Australian Army during World War II. Set up and headed by the charismatic Alf Conlon, ...

.Sligo, G. 2012.''The Backroom Boys: Conlon and Army's Directorate of Research and Civil Affairs, 1942–46'', Big Sky Publishing. He studied at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb nor ...

from 1946, graduating BA with

honours Honour (British English) or honor (American English; see spelling differences) is the idea of a bond between an individual and a society as a quality of a person that is both of social teaching and of personal ethos, that manifests itself as a ...

. He married in 1947, and worked as a freelance writer, then in advertising, then as Public Relations Manager with ICI in Melbourne. He was Director of

from 1962 to 1989. He wrote about these years in his memoir ''Final Proof'' (2010). In the September 1993 edition of '' Quadrant'' he wrote an attack on the six-volume ''History of Australia'' by

Manning Clark Charles Manning Hope Clark, (3 March 1915 – 23 May 1991) was an Australian historian and the author of the best-known general history of Australia, his six-volume ''A History of Australia'', published between 1962 and 1987. He has been descri ...

, which Melbourne University Press had published between 1962 and 1987. Among other things he said Clark's history was "over a million printed English words, probably unrivalled in their power to combine the ''non sequitur'' with the anticlimax, and to wring the last drops from a series of foregone conclusions". The article aroused considerable controversy, which Ryan dealt with in a subsequent article in ''Quadrant'' in October 1994. He wrote a monthly column for ''Quadrant'' from March 1994 to October 2015. A selection of these columns was published in 2011 under the title ''It Strikes Me''. He died on 13 December 2015 at the age of 92.

Bibliography

Books

* * * * * * * ''Black Bonanza: A Landslide of Gold'' (1991) (on the gold rush at Mount Kare in Papua New Guinea) * ''Lines of Fire: Manning Clark & Other Writings'' (1997) * ''Brief Lives: Biographical Glimpses of Ben Chifley, Paul Hasluck, A.D. Hope and Others'' (2004) * ''Final Proof: Memoirs of a Publisher'' (2010) * ''It Strikes Me: Essays by Peter Ryan 1994–2010'' (2011)

"Ryan" columns in ''Quadrant''

Book reviews

References

External links

Publisher's biography
at

Duffy & Snellgrove Duffy & Snellgrove is a small, independent publishing house founded in Australia in 1996 by journalist Michael Duffy and his wife Alex Snellgrove. Since November 2005, the company has stopped publishing new works, although they continue to publi ...

Publisher's biography
at

Text Publishing Text Publishing is an independent Australian publisher of fiction and non-fiction, based in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria. Company background Text Media was founded in Melbourne in 1990 by Diana Gribble and Eric Beecher, along wit ...

Service record

in the Australian about fellow DORCA alumnus

Ida Leeson Ida Emily Leeson (11 February 1885 – 22 January 1964) was the Mitchell Librarian at the State Library of New South Wales from December 1932 – April 1946. She was the first woman to achieve a senior management position in an Australian l ...

Five tributes to Peter Ryan in ''Quadrant'' March 2016
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ryan, Peter Australian columnists 1923 births 2015 deaths Australian essayists 20th-century Australian male writers Australian military personnel of World War II Australian publishers (people) Australian recipients of the Military Medal Male essayists Quadrant (magazine) people University of Melbourne alumni University of Melbourne faculty 20th-century Australian public servants Australian memoirists Australian literary critics People from Glen Iris, Victoria Public servants from Melbourne Military personnel from Melbourne Writers from Melbourne