Writer's research & sources

The Tichborne case provided Marcus Clarke with the material of John Rex's impersonation of Richard Devine in His Natural Life Arthur Orton, a butcher…

James Erskine Calder's brief correspondence with Sir George Grey, noticed by Bruce Ncsbitt in an earlier issue of Australian Literary Studies, consists of half…

Boehm examines the sources of most characters and events to show how far Clarke departed from the records he read in preparation for writing His…

Francis Webb's interest in Australian explorers has been a continuing one and he has found material tor his major poetic sequences in their characters and…

Denholm lists primary sources that may have inspired Marcus Clarke's depiction of Port Arthur in For the Term of His Natural Life.

A close reading of Slessor’s sequence, focussing on the nature of the visions and the visionaries; the use Slessor makes of his sources; and questions…

Challenges H.M. Green’s judgement that William Gosse Hay’s talent was ‘not of the first order, even by Australian standards’. Investigates the basis of this reputation…

Most readers of Furphy are familiar with his terse characterization of the full-sized novel he had written (Such is Life in its first form)…

Rodriguez provides evidence that the character of Nosey Alf in Such is Life is based on the historical figure of Johanna Jorgensen, who lived for…

Rollo Arnold's reconstruction of Henry Lawson's association with Gertrude Moore at Pahiatua, on his first visit to New Zealand (Australian Literary Studies vol. 4…

Probably the most important of Richardson's sources for The Fortunes of Richard Mahony are those about which least is known The 'old letters and diaries'…

Among the many historical novels written in Australia during the thirties and forties, The Timeless Land is unique for the way it foregrounds the journals…

In an earlier article on Gilmore's translations from the Spanish (ALS 18.2, 1997), I wrote that we lacked a title for the avowed source…

Christopher Brennan's sequence 'The Wanderer' does not have to be defended as one c the most important literary artefacts of Australia's most interesting literary decade…

A number of authors of war literature were sent a questionnaire by ALS, asking them to write about why they had turned to war…

Roger McDonald responds to a survey asking about his approach to war as a subject or vehicle for fiction, the challenges of doing so, the…

Henry Rouse, prisoner 18485, also known as Henry Beresford Garrett, Long Harry, John Heathcote and Klodhopr, spent about 38 years in gaols in England, Norfolk…

Ryan discusses the convict Maurice Fitzgerald, whose biography inspired both Keneally's novel Passenger and Fitzgerald's poem 'The Wind at Your Door'.

The catalogue of Clarke's library, a valuable source of information on Clarke's tastes as a reader and techniques as a writer, has been hitherto largely…