Percival Serle | |
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_c_1949.png) Percival Serle (1871–1951), author ofDictionary of Australian Biography, taken around 1949 | |
| Born | (1871-07-18)18 July 1871 Elsternwick,Victoria, Australia |
| Died | 16 December 1951(1951-12-16) (aged 80) |
| Occupation | Biographer and bibliographer |
Percival Serle (18 July 1871 – 16 December 1951) was an Australian biographer andbibliographer.[1]
Serle was born inElsternwick,Victoria to English parents who had migrated as children[2] and for many years worked in a life assurance office before in November 1910 becoming chief clerk and accountant at theUniversity of Melbourne. He married artistDora Beatrice Hake on 29 March 1910. They were to have three children.[2] One son,Alan Geoffrey Serle, was selected as 1947 VictorianRhodes scholar.[3]
Serle ran a second-hand bookshop during the depression; was guide-lecturer at theNational Gallery of Victoria; curator of the Art Museum of the Gallery; and member of the council of theVictorian Artists Society. He was also president of theAustralian Literature Society.
Serle's publications included an edition, with notes, ofA Song to David and Other Poems by the 18th-century English poet,Christopher Smart;A Bibliography of Australasian Poetry and Verse: Australia and New Zealand;An Australasian Anthology (with 'Furnley Maurice' andR. H. Croll);A selection of Poems byFurnley Maurice;Dictionary of Australian Biography; andA Primer of Collecting.
TheDictionary took more than twenty years to complete and contains more than one thousand biographies of prominent Australians or people closely connected with Australia. Serle commented in the Preface: "I have endeavoured to make the book worthy of its subject. It would have been better could I have spent another five years on it, but at seventy-five years of age one realizes there is a time to make an end." He was awarded theAustralian Literature Society Gold Medal for 1949 for the work.[4][5]
Serle died on 16 December 1951, inHawthorn, Victoria, aged 80.
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