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Title: Ten Australian AuthorsAuthor: Aidan de Brune* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *eBook No.: 1700831h.htmlLanguage: EnglishDate first posted: Nov 2017Most recent update: Nov 2017This eBook was produced by Terry Walker, Colin Choat and Roy Glashan.Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editionswhich are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright noticeis included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particularpaper edition.Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check thecopyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing thisfile.This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictionswhatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the termsof the Project Gutenberg of Australia License which may be viewed online athttp://gutenberg.net.au/licence.htmlTo contact Project Gutenberg of Australia go to http://gutenberg.net.au
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Cover Design by Terry Walker 2017©
IN 1933 several Australian newspapers published a series ofarticles outlining the careers of ten contemporary authors, written by one ofthem—Aidan de Brune.
With the present volume Roy Glashan's Library and Project GutenbergAustralia offer, for the first time in book form, an illustrated collectionof all ten articles drawn from the digital newspaper archives of the NationalLibrary of Australia.
The texts of the first nine articles are based on the versions publishedin theThe West Australian from 1 April to 27 May 1933. The text ofthe article about Ambrose Pratt was taken from the issue ofThe GraftonDaily Examiner, NSW, for 9 April 1933.
Portrait photographs of the ten authors have been added.
—Roy Glashan, 27August 2017.
Norman Lindsay
NORMAN LINDSAY, artist, philosopher, and novelist, is anAustralian phenomenon. His fame is world-wide. Like Nellie Melba, he hassurprised the world with the possession of a rare gift, and shown that geniuscan be native to this land of empty spaces and a small population.
Norman Lindsay is acknowledged to be the greatest living illustrator inblack-and-white, and one of the finest craftsmen with the pen who has everlived. Even those who dislike the nude in art, which Norman Lindsay lavishlydisplays, are compelled to acknowledge the incomparable dexterity andtechnical excellence of his work.
He is many-sided. In his serious work as an artist he has proved himself amaster of oil-painting, water-colour, etching, wood-engraving and dry-point.His pen-and-ink illustrations to the sumptuous editions of Greek and Romanclassics which have been published in London are sought by collectors of rarebooks throughout the world.
In the spacious gardens of his home at Springwood, in the Blue Mountains,there are dozens of life-size sculptures which he has modelled. In his studiothere are numerous models of sailing-ships in full rig, among them theclipperThermopylae and an Elizabethan warship, which experts considerto be perfect in every detail. His model of Captain Cook'sEndeavouris preserved in the Melbourne Museum.
For twenty years he was principal cartoonist on, the SydneyBulletin and he still contributes occasional humorous drawings andcartoons to that journal. He is a brilliant conversationalist and charminghost. His home at Springwood has been a place of pilgrimage for manycelebrated people, such as Anna Pavlova, Fritz Kreisler and Melba, who havebeen eager to pay their respects to an Australian who has proved his claim tothe title of genius.
Norman Lindsay is the author of a number of books.The MagicPudding, a humorous tale for children, written and illustrated by him, isan Australian "best-seller." It was published by Angus and Robertson,Ltd.
A Curate in Bohemia, published by the N.S.W. Bookstall Co., Ltd.was written many years ago. It deals with the humorous aspect of life amongstthe artists in Melbourne, in the 'nineties. More than 50,000 copies have beensold.
Turning to more serious themes, inCreative Effort, published inLondon in 1924, Norman Lindsay expounded the philosophical basis of artisticendeavour.
A philosophical novel in dialogue,Madame Life's Lovers, publishedin London, in 1929, gave further expression to the serious side of histhoughts. Leaving the artistic theme, he described inRedheap,published in London and New York in 1930, the humorous aspects of family lifein an Australian mining town of forty years ago. Exception was taken to thebook by the Australian Customs officials, who ordered the return of 10,000copies to London.
Redheap has now been turned into a play by Floyd Dell, thecelebrated American dramatist, and is to be produced in New York this year.WhenRedheap was banned, Norman Lindsay left Australia, declaring thata country which consistently neglected its authors or treated them shabbilywas not a properly civilised place.
He travelled through America and England, and incidentally arranged forthe publication of more of his novels. Two of these,Mr. Gresham onOlympus andThe Cautious Amorist, have recently been issued inboth London and New York. Although not banned, it is difficult to obtain themin Australia, owing to the curtailment of book-importing by adverse exchangerates and prevailing economic conditions.
In London, Norman Lindsay persuaded Mr. P. R. Stephensen, a QueenslandRhodes Scholar with practical experience in book publishing in England, toundertake the organisation of an Australian Book Publishing Company, toencourage the work of our local authors. On Mr. Stephensen's arrival inAustralia four months ago, the Bulletin Newspaper Company agreed to place itsorganisation and resources at the disposal of the new firm, of which both Mr.Lindsay and Mr. Stephensen are directors.
This new Australian publishing house will begin issuing books next monthunder the imprint of The Endeavour Press. The press-mark of the firm is adesign of Captain Cook'sEndeavour in full sail, designed by NormanLindsay. The first novel issued will be a new book by Norman Lindsay,entitledSaturdee, a humorous story about Australian schoolboy pranks,mischief and fun. Its appearance will be eagerly awaited.
Louis Stone
LOUIS STONE, the author ofJonah andBettyWayside, is one of the most remarkable of Australian authors. His books,published in England, were allowed to go out of print during the War, and arenow almost unobtainable. Second-hand copies ofJonah have been soldfor as much as £2/10/- each. Competent critics declare that this book is aworthy successor toRobbery Under Arms andFor the Term of HisNatural Life amongst Australian novels that can properly be called"classic."
"With one book," declared A. G. Stephens, whenJonah was firstpublished, "Mr. Stone has put himself in the front rank of Australianauthorship."
Mr. John Galsworthy wrote: "I have lapped up your novel, which I considerextraordinarily actual, vivid, and good."
With such praise it is difficult to understand why Mr. Stone's book wasever allowed to go out of print. Australian authors have certainly had smallencouragement from their own countrymen in the past.
The new edition ofJonah, which is to be published this year by TheEndeavour Press in Sydney, will make tardy amends to Mr. Stone for twentyyears' neglect of his masterpiece.
What is it that makesJonah a really great book? Norman Lindsayperhaps supplied the answer when he wrote: "Louis Stone's streets and peopleare instantly vitalised and known at a glance."
Let us take an example of his descriptive power. It is the reader'sintroduction to Mrs. Yabsley, the mountainouswasherwoman-philosopher:—
"Cardigan Street was proud of her. Her eyes twinkled in abig, humorous face; her arm was like a leg of mutton; the floors creakedbeneath her as she walked. She laughed as a bull roars; her face turnedpurple; she fought for air; the veins rose like cords on her forehead. Shewas pointed out to strangers like a public building as she sat gossiping withher neighbours in a voice that shook the windows. Her sayings were quotedlike the newspapers. Draymen laughed at her jokes."
Note with what artistry the novelist has built up a complete picture insimple words. We note the same forceful quality in the description of Jonahhimself, the larrikin hunchback, with his "large head, wedged between theshoulders as if a giant's hand had pushed it down, the masterful nose, thekeen grey eyes, and the cynical lips."
Jonah is truly an unforgettable character. Born in the squalor and crueltyof slum life, he becomes leader of the "Push," and dictator of its fiercelaws. One of the most terrifying passages in all literature is thedescription of the Push* "dealing out stouch"† to a victim:
[*Push. A Sydney street gang. Known for theirsharp outfits as much as their violence, the Pushes followed a particularstructure. Led by a Captain, the "Larrikins" and their girlfriends, the"Donahs," worked together to rob drunken visitors to the Rocks.
†To deal out stouch: to thrash, to beat up—R.G.]
"The Push opened out, and the man, sobered by danger, stoodfor a moment with bewildered eyes. Then, with the instinct of the hunted, heturned for home and ran. The Push gave chase. Again and again the quarryturned, blindly seeking refuge in the darkest lanes. As his pursuers gainedon him he gave a hoarse scream—the dolorous cry of a hunted animal. Butit was the cat playing with the mouse. The bricklayer ran like a cow, hisjoints stiffened by years of toil; the larrikins, light on their feet ashares, kept the pace with a nimble trot, silent and dangerous, conscious ofnothing but the desire and power to kill."
Jonah flees from the Push.
From this fierce and savage environment Jonah escapes, thanks to Mrs.Yabsley's motherly humorous advice and the influence of his own baby son, byMrs. Yabsley's daughter, Ada. When Jonah first sees the baby, "flesh of hisflesh; bone of his bone:"
"He remembered his deformity, and with a sudden catch in his breath,lifted the child from its cradle and felt its back, a passionate fear in hisheart. It was straight as a die...'Sool 'im!' he cried at last, and poked hisson in the ribs."
From that moment his regeneration begins. "'E's the only relation I've gotin the world; 'e's the only livin' creature that looks at me without seein'my hump," says Jonah to Mrs. Yabsley.
The story of his victory over sordid surroundings, and of how the larrikinand wastrel wins through to self-respect is told throughout with the surenessof touch and gift for observation that only great novelists possess.
Louis Stone, a quiet-speaking and cultivated man, is now living inretirement at Randwick. He was born in Leicester, and came to Australia as achild. He is a graduate of Sydney University, and was a schoolmaster for manyyears. His favourite authors are Flaubert and Virgil. He has a keenappreciation of classical music, of which he is an accomplished critic.
With these scholarly interests it is all the more remarkable that thetheme of hismagnum opus should have been the lowest life of Sydney'sslum streets, but to the humanist all life is interesting and this perhapsexplains why Mr. Stone turned to a subject which most writers would havefound unattractive, or too difficult. It is well that he did so. The larrikinpushes of Sydney, have almost entirely disappeared. But in one great bookthat interesting phase of Australian evolution has been put on record for alltime.
Bernard Cronin
BERNARD CRONIN, President of the Society of AustralianAuthors, is one of those stalwart "professional" writers whose books commanda world sale; but unlike some of the other Australian authors of this class,he has not gone abroad to live and work in exile, away from the source of hisinspiration. He accepts the challenge which the Australian bush offers towriters of major fiction.
"The writer in the Old Country," he has stated, "finds his scenery, as itwere, ready made for him. In this country it is definitely not to be foundupon the surface of things. One has to dig deeply to become aware of the verygreat natural beauties of the Australian landscape. Real treasure is mostlyof the buried variety. To my mind there is more character in an old Aussiegum tree than in any other tree I ever heard of. Incidentally, I should saythat that much abused genius, D. H. Lawrence, came closer to an understandingof the spirit of the Australian landscape than any other writer, local, orimported, has yet done. He is the first scribe definitely to sight the realgenii of the bush."
We may take this to mean that Bernard Cronin is intrigued by Australia asa literary theme, but he does not "sentimentalise" his subject.
"Our trouble is that we lack real breeding, and crudeness is a poorscaffold for the Arts. Further, the indifference of our rulers to theabsolute need to develop a national soul has not made matters any better.Hansard will never make this country aware of the sublimities of humandestiny. We need to see Australia from her own standpoint, and with her ownindividuality. The Arts are our only hope of salvation."
By this last phrase our fierce realist is revealed as an idealist, afterall. The title of his new book,The Sow's Ear, which will be publishedthis year in Australia, shows that the author is concerned with makingsomething fine from our "crude" material. The story is set in the Tasmaniantimber country, in the days before the war. It is a ruthless exposure of thetragic life of young girls enslaved by the system of marrying without love,at the command of domineering parents. The heroine longs for somethingbetter, but must accept her fate. In her passionate desire to escape from thebondage of the bush, she works to win for her two little daughters the chancein life which was so bitterly denied to herself.
Bernard Cronin's novels all have this "fierce" quality. He has aimed atexposing what he considers to be wrong, stupid or uneconomic. In this sensehe is the strongest of the Australian writers who wish to make us aware ofour shortcomings, so that we may eliminate them, and become a truly civilisednation.
He is fully equipped for the literary task which he has set himself. Hecame to Australia forty years ago, at the age of six years, in charge of thecaptain of the old Orient steamerAustral. On the way out he nearlykilled an able seaman, who was painting the ship's side, holding to the deckwith one hand.
Young Cronin jumped with both feet on the sailor's hand, "just to see whatwould happen." The sailor let go, but was providentially rescued. Perhaps itwas this impish spirit of curiosity that eventually led Cronin to become awriter, and to jump, figuratively, upon the fingers of his Australianreaders.
"I am not really pugnacious," he says, "but I resent with violenceanything that strikes me as being cheap."
He tells us that he began to write as soon as he learned that a pencil maybe sharpened by biting it. He decided to become a farmer, and entered theDookie Agricultural College. In 1901 he was dux of the college and goldmedalist.
He then had jackaroo experience on Kewita Station, South Gippsland, andUlupna Station, in the north-east of Victoria, before taking upcattle-farming on the north-west coast of Tasmania, where he remained for tenyears. His experience there has provided him with material for nearly a dozennovels and serials, and innumerable short stories.
He has published the following novels:The Coastlanders, 1918;Timber Wolves, 1920;Bluff Stakes, 1922;Salvage, 1923;Red Dawson, 1927;White Gold, 1927;The Treasure of theTropics, 1928;Dragonfly, 1928;Toad, 1929;Bracken,1931; and, in conjunction with Arthur Russell,BushrangingSilhouettes, 1932.
Six of these novels have been issued by London publishers in cheapeditions—a sure proof of their popularity.
Now living in Melbourne, Bernard Cronin has revealed the humanitarianimpulse which lies below his "fierceness" by his work for the DerelictSociety, which he founded in conjunction with Gertrude Hart. He is also thefounder of the Society of Australian Authors, and has shown a very great zealin striving to remove the handicaps under which our writers have to work.
"There is much to discourage the Australian writer," he says."Nevertheless, he holds steadily to his job. He hopes that the pioneeringwork which he is doing will prove an invaluable foundation for the generationof writers to come. Give him the support of his own Government and public,and he will win to wider distinction inside a decade. But he'll win through,any way."
When Australian authors have finally won recognition from their ownpeople, the name of Bernard Cronin will stand high in the roll of honour ofthose who have fought for this objective.
Miles Franklin
THIRTY years ago literary circles in Australia wereastounded by the publication of an extraordinary book, written by a girl ofsixteen, Stella Miles Franklin. The title of the book wasaudacious—My Brilliant Career. The "brilliant career" of a girlof sixteen might have meant any thing—a reading of the book itselfshows that it meant a great deal. The story is in the form, partly, offiction, and partly of autobiography, and it bears on every page the imprintof sheer genius. It throbs with a passionate love of the Australian bush, andparticularly of horses, and with an equal passionate hatred of the crueltiesof life endured by the people on the land, particularly by the women. It isthe first statement, and to this day it remains the greatest statement, ofthe case for Australian bush womanhood.
In a preface to the book Henry Lawson said:—
"The description of bush life and scenery came startlingly,painfully real to me; and I know that, as far as they are concerned, the bookis true to Australia—the truest I ever read. She has lived her book,and I feel proud of it for the sake of the country I came from, where peopletoil and bake and suffer, and are kind."
The youthful author herself says in her introduction:—
"This is not a romance. I have too often faced the music oflife to the tune of hardship to waste time in snivelling and gushing overfancies and dreams... Do not fear encountering such trash as descriptions ofbeautiful sunsets and whisperings of wind. We (999 out of every 1,000) cansee naught in sunsets save as signs and tokens whether we may expect rain onthe morrow. There is no plot in the story, because there has been none in mylife, or in any other life which has come under my notice."
But the last chapter swells to a magnificent paean of youth's brave challengeto the world:—
"I am proud that I am an Australian, a daughter of theSouthern Cross, a child of the mighty bush. I am thankful I am a peasant, apart of the bone and muscle of my nation, and earn my bread by the sweat ofmy brow, as man was meant to do.
"Ah! my sunburnt brothers—sons of toils and ofAustralia—I love and respect you well, for you are brave and good andtrue. I have seen not only those of you with youth and hope strong in yourveins, but those with pathetic streaks of grey in your hair, large familiesto support, and with half a century sitting upon your work-laden shoulders. Ihave seen you struggle uncomplainingly against flood, fire, disease in stock,pests, drought, trade depression, and sickness, and yet have time to extendyour hands and hearts in true sympathy to a brother, in misfortune, andspirits to laugh and joke and be cheerful.
"And for my sisters a great love and pity fills my heart.Daughters of toil, who scrub and wash and mend and cook, who are dressmakers,paper-hangers, milk-maids, gardeners, and candle-makers all in one, and yethave time to be cheerful and tasty in your homes, and make the best of thefew cases to be found along the dusty track of your existence. Would that Iwere more worthy to be one of you—more a typical Australianpeasant—cheerful, honest, brave!
"I love you. I love you. Bravely you jog along with the ropeof class distinction drawing closer, closer, tighter, tighter around you. Afew more generations, and you will be enslaved as were ever the moujiks ofRussia. I see it, and know it, but I cannot help you. My ineffective lifewill be trod out in the same ground of toil. I am only one of yourselves, Iam only an unnecessary, little bush commoner. I am only a—woman!
"The great, sun is sinking in the west, grinning, andwinking knowingly as he goes, upon the starving stock and drought smittenwastes of land. Nearer he draws to the gum-tree, scrubby horizon, turns theclouds to orange, scarlet, silver, flame, gold! Down, down he goes. Thegorgeous, garnish splendour of sunset pageantry flames out; the long shadowseagerly cover all; the kookaburras laugh their merry mocking good-night; theclouds fade to turquoise, green, and grey; the stars peep shyly out; the softcall of the moke-poke arises in the gullies! With much love and good wishesto all—Good-night! Good-bye! Amen!"
The manuscript ofMy Brilliant Career was taken to England by EarlBeauchamp, then Governor of New South Wales, and it was published byBlackwood, of Edinburgh. Like many another fine Australian books it has beenallowed to go out of print, and copies are now quite unobtainable. Perhaps itwill be re-issued by one of our Australian publishing houses soon.
Meanwhile, what happened to Miles Franklin? She went abroad, and has beenlost to Australia for more than twenty years. She threw herself intoorganising work for the Feminist Movement in the United States of America,wrote thousands of newspaper and magazine articles, and made speeches inevery State of the Union.
When the war broke out she went to Salonika with the Scottish Women'sHospital. After the war she had a most responsible position as secretary ofthe Housing Committee in London. In all these years of great organisingachievement she was definitely lost to Australian life and letters.
Now she has returned to her native land. A year ago a book appeared,Old Blastus of Bandicoot, under her name. The book is modestlydescribed as an "opuscule," but all the old fire and dash is there.
John Dalley, in the SydneyBulletin, sums up what many othercritics have said about this book:
"The characterisation's the thing. Nothing so good has beendone in any previous novel about the Australian bush."
This year The Endeavour Press will print and publish in Australia a sprightlydetective story by Miles Franklin, entitledBring theMonkey!—modestly described as a "light novel."
Is that, then, the whole story of Miles Franklin? We shall see. Is itlikely, or possible, that a writer of such power and sheer genius as theauthor ofMy Brilliant Career should have been silent for more thantwenty years? Miles Franklin will not admit it, but whether she likes it ornot people are identifying her with the mysterious "Brent of Bin Bin," whosebooks (published by Blackwood, of Edinburgh, be it noted) are acknowledged tobe the finest presentation in fiction of the Australian outback epic whichhave yet been written.
"Brent of Bin Bin" loves the bush and understands horses, and hatesinjustice to bush women, as only the author ofMy Brilliant Career andOld Blastus of Bandicoot could love, and understand, and hate.
The "Brent of Bin Bin" trilogy (Up the Country,Ten CreeksRun,Back to Bool Bool) are already Australian classics. Despitethe fact that they are difficult to obtain, as are most Australian bookspublished overseas, they have gone into numerous editions, and are hailed bya multitude of discerning readers as being absolute portents for the futureof the Australian novel—a real and true portrait, not a caricature, ofoutback life.
If Miles Franklin is also "Brent of Bin Bin," then she is the greatestAustralian bush novelist alive. And if she is only Miles Franklin ofMyBrilliant Career andOld Blastus of Bandicoot she takes secondplace to one writer alone—the tremendously gifted and mysterious authorwho writes in Miles Franklin's manner under the pseudonym of "Brent."
Aidan de Brune
The story that Aidan de Brune tells in this article abouthis own life before he came to Australia is fabulatory. For the real story,read theAfterword to this book, which contains afully-researched description of the author's life and works.
FIFTY-FOUR years is a long way to look back upon, to alittle village some few miles outside Montreal where, I am informed, I wasborn. I have little knowledge of the event, and but little more of the longtrek to Zululand, where my father escorted his family when I reached themature age of four years. More distinctly, I remember my Zulu play-fellows,and the long, long trek to Cape Town, where I was sent to school, at the ageof nine.
A family council, when I reached my fourteenth birthday, decided that Iwould be an ornament to the priesthood, and I departed for London,enroute for Maynooth.
At that time England and the United States of America were awakening tothe new journalism, under the respective guidances of Harmsworth and Hearst.I was attracted, and a great longing to tread the inky way possessed me. Inconsequence, I stayed in London, completing a sketchy education at nightschools and haunting the newspaper offices or the city by day. To mygratification—and the surprise of many of the major journalists of thatperiod—I developed a flair for the trade, and within a few months foundI could earn bread at it, with an occasional flavouring of cheese and jam.Short story writing had long attracted me—my first fiction story hadappeared in a Cape Town newspaper before I reached eleven. In London I foundcorners in magazines and journals open to my efforts, and this editorialencouragement had disastrous effects on my future—I determined to be anauthor.
I started a "magnum opus'" and—to buy paper and ink—cultivated sensational love-story writing in periodicals of theFamilyHerald Supplement type. On the outbreak of the Boer War I found I hadsufficient money in the bank to pay my fare home—to South. Africa. Afight has always attracted me, and amid the wide-spread battleground of SouthAfrica I found adventure sufficient for an ordinary lifetime.
I returned to London with a 100,000 words novel on the war—butpublishers are always unkind, even those of the present century. My arrivalin London was only the jumping-off place. The United States of America was analluring vision on the horizon—and I strode for the foot of therainbow. I landed in New York with exactly nineteen shillings and three-pencein my pocket; a great belief in my own powers; and a store of imaginationthat won me past the very lax emigration laws of that period. Followed aperiod of wandering up and down a country then in the making—and almostas big as Australia. I worked at anything that came to hand—and, whenwork failed to materialise, characterised as the perfect hobo. Even to-day Iremember what particularly hard boot-leather was provided for thetrain-guards. And all this time I was writing stories and articles—andall the time editors and publishers were filling the U.S. mails with myreturns.
By the time I had reached twenty-five I claimed to have the largest andmost varied collection of "The editor regrets..." in the known world. Still,Iwould write. Chance gave me the opportunity to practise journalism,and for a time I walked the streets of big cities, a full-blown reporter.
Again the wide spaces called—I think it was a minor revolution inPanama. Anyway, I went south to see Spanish America. Some hundreds of days ofwild adventures—the nights spent in scribbling; and I woke up to thefact that some thousands of dollars had accumulated in New York to my credit.I was a capitalist!
Naturally, my first thought was to see the world—up to then I hadonly partially surveyed Canada, South Africa, England and the United States.The Orient called, but I had no intention of wasting money on fares. In'Frisco a friendly master mariner offered to ship me before the mast of abefouled, much-wandered cargo-boat, and I jumped at his offer before he hadtime to get sober. Then I learned something of the Pacific, as asailing-pond, and a good deal of the many and varied nationalities itcontains.
While at Singapore I said good-bye to the vessel, but forgot to takefarewell of the captain. He didn't trouble to find me—I suppose becauseI had forgotten to collect wages owing me.
Deciding to explore China, by good luck I came into the graces of a highofficial of the Empire. With him I visited large tracts that country thenunknown to white man. Back to the United States, my head filled with factsand fictions, determined to settle down and become a respectable member ofsociety.
By the time I reached New York again I had less than a dollar in mypocket. Two days spent in examining and approving the alterations made in thecity during my absence, and I bethought myself of the treasury—and thehotel bill that was steadily mounting. Full of thought, I wandered down tothe doors of a well-known publishing house —and hesitated. What had Ifor sale? It took more than two hours, pacing the block, to frame asatisfactory plot for a serial. Then I chose an editor—and bearded himin his lair. How I put it over, I don't know; but I do know that I came outof that building with a commission to write a fiction serial then onlyexisting in my mind—and, what was more to the point, with half paymentfor the story in my pocket. That story was written in thirteen days—I'malways fond of unlucky thirteen—and I was up 250 dollars. Then andthere, on a busy sidewalk, during the busiest hour of the day. I electedmyself serial-writer for the great United States of America—and up to acertain point I made good on I my self-election.
Through all the earlier days of my life I had been fascinated bycrooks—although at that time I was not using them as material forstories. Opportunity offering, I obtained a place on a newspaper, developinga flair for crime investigation (of the newspaper kind).
Now followed some years of peace, my days being devoted to journalism andmy nights to fiction-writing. Just about the time my banker recognised myentry to his establishment with a welcoming smile, I broke down in health.Eighteen months of neurasthenia; more than half that time helpless on abed.
American doctors sent me to England. There the fraternity declared me ahopeless case. Perhaps to get me off their hands with the least trouble, theydecided that my only hope was a voyage to Australia. Hospital attendantscarried me on board ship, but at Port Said I walked ashore to see the sights.By the-time I reached Fremantle I had decided there was still room in thisworld for me. I looked at that western capital and decided that the countrywas good; also that doctors were darned bad guessers.
The wander-lust urged again, and for quite a time I travelled most of thesouthern parts of the continent. Then came the War and I joined, to myability, in the Great Adventure. Again back to Australia, with an earnestdesire to see those parts of it I had previously missed. At that time certaingentlemen were forming theSydney Daily Mail.
One day I wandered into Mr. Gay's offices and announced that I proposed towalk around Australia—and would he pay for articles on the trip? Mr.Gay was blunt. First he told me exactly how many kinds of fools I was tothink of such a trip, then came to an agreement with business-likepromptitude. Within a few hours I had gathered together what I thoughtnecessary for an 11,000 miles trip, and had left Sydney.
Two and a half years later I came to Sydney again, having in the meantimevisited nearly every port on the extensive coastline. More to the point, Ihad proved possible a trip quite a number of Sydney wise-heads had declaredto be sheer suicide.
My literary work? Well, about fifty to sixty serials, under variousnom-de-plumes in London and New York— some dozen of them onlyappearing in book form. Not until I had completed the walk around Australiaand had settled. down in Sydney again did I attempt to make use of mypartiality for crooks and their works. My first story on these lines wasDr. Night, published in theWorld News.
Then followedThe Carson Loan Mystery, published by the N.S.W.Bookstall Co. Ltd., of Sydney. A little later theDaily Guardian,Sydney, ranThe Dagger and Cord as a serial, and immediately it endedin the newspaper Messrs. Angus & Robertson, Ltd., published it in bookform. Then, in the columns of theDaily Guardian followedFingerprints of Fate (published by Angus & Robertson, Ltd.. underthe title ofThe Shadow Crook) andThe Little Grey Woman. Sincethen I have devoted myself more particularly to serial writing, under my ownname andnom-de-plumes, totalling in all fourteen stories. Myamusements: Two absorbing ones. Writing mystery stories and barrackingFederal politicians to foster a national Australian literature. The firsteasy; the last apparently very difficult.
"Banjo" Paterson
IF the Commonwealth Government were to appoint an AustralianPoet Laureate there can be no doubt that the first holder of that high officewould be Andrew Barton Paterson, known far and wide as "Banjo" Paterson. Hisname is a household word. More truly than any other of our numerousAustralian poets, he has expressed the spirit of this land in verse.
"Banjo" Paterson, now nearing seventy years of age, is the undisputed Deanof Australian poetry. His verses, since they first began to appear in theBulletin, fifty years ago, have been recited throughout the length andbreadth of the land, in shearing sheds, at bush concerts, wherever two orthree Australians have gathered around a camp fire. The rollicking rhythm ofhis ballads, the apt phrases, sometimes slangy, sometimes high poetry, havebrought joy to hundreds of thousands of readers and listeners.
While poets of high-falutin' "schools of thought" have piped in their thinand genteel voices to meagre audiences of bored listeners, this robust singerof the wide plains and mountains of the bushland has "bestrode them like aColossus." The people, with their true instinct to recognise what is sincerein art, have given "Banjo" Paterson the applause which only a major poet cancommand. Over 100,000 copies ofThe Man from Snowy River have beensold. Probably there is not a man, woman, or child in Australia who does notknow at least some of "Banjo" Paterson's verse by heart.
Australia's Poet Laureate has had an interesting and varied career and awide experience of both bush and city life. He was born in 1864 at Narrambla,New South Wales, and was educated at the Sydney Grammar School. He practisedas a solicitor for fifteen years before deciding to take up journalism, whenhis verses were beginning to make him famous.The Man from Snowy Riverwas published in book form in 1895, and from that time his position as anational songster was assured.
He was editor of theEvening News for five years, and acted ascorrespondent of the LondonTimes on sugar-growing, pearl-diving, andAustralian subjects generally. When the Boer war broke out, he went to SouthAfrica as Reuter's correspondent. On the outbreak of the Great War, in 1914,he volunteered for active service with the A.I.F. Though over military age,he was given the rank of major, joined the Remount Unit, and saw service inEgypt and Palestine.
He has travelled extensively outback, particularly in Central Australiaand the Northern Territory, where be went buffalo shooting. In one of hisverses he describes typical buffalo country:—
Out where the grey streams glide,
Sullen and deep and slow,
And the alligators slide
From the mud to the depths below,
Or drift on the stream like a floating death
Where the fever comes on the south wind's breath
There is the buffalo.
In addition toThe Man from Snowy River he has publishedRioGrande's Last Race, andSaltbush Bill, besides a novel entitledAn Outback Marriage, and a humorous book entitledThree ElephantPower. He has also edited a collection ofOld Bush Songs.
Now, after a silence of many years, he has ready a new book of poems,which will be published before Easter, by The Endeavour Press, withillustrations by Norman Lindsay. The most popular poet and the greatestillustrator in Australia will thus collaborate for the first time in thepages of a book, though it was Norman Lindsay who designed the original coverforThe Man from Snowy River.
The title of the new verses isThe Animals Noah Forgot. In aforeword the poet explains that the native bear refused to go in the Arkbecause Noah did not carry a stock of gum leaves—and the platypusrefused because he was afraid of being trodden on by the elephant!
Most of the poems deal in a humorous, but very understanding way, with theAustralian bush animals. The wombat, for example:
The strongest creature for his size,
But least equipped for combat,
That dwells beneath Australian skies is
Weary Will the Wombat.
The platypus, who "descended from a family most exclusive:"
He talks in a deep unfriendly growl
As he goes on his journey lonely;
For he's no relation to fish nor fowl,
Nor to bird nor beast, nor to hornèd owl.
In fact, he's the one and only!
The bandicoot, who "will come to look at a light, and scientists wonder,why:"
If the bush is burning it's time to scoot
Is the notion of Benjamin Bandicoot.
The flying squirrels:
Never a care at all
Bothers their simple brains;
You can see them glide in the moonlight dim
From tree to tree and from limb to limb.
Little grey aeroplanes.
These few quotations show that none of the poet's old brilliance of phrasehas been lost.
Besides descriptions of the bush animals, there are poems on shearers,bullock-drivers, cattle-dogs, and a rattling good "Ballad of the Army Mules,"which would be a credit to Rudyard Kipling, if that Dean of English Poets hadrhymed it.
The multitude of admirers of Australia's national poet will welcome his"return to form." The young poets of the post-war generation might well studythis book, and take a lesson from one of the "Old Hands" at the game ofversifying. It is only by sheer hard work and a constant observation of menand nature that poetry such as "Banjo" Paterson's, which looks so easy, iswritten.
Dulcie Deamer
DULCIE DEAMER has had an adventurous life. She was born inChristchurch, New Zealand, in 1890, her father being a doctor. She never wentto school, her mother being her sole teacher. At the age of eight she wasallowed the unrestricted run of her father's fine library, and she read thenovels of Lord Lytton and Sir Walter Scott, abhorring—as sheconfesses—all "children's" books.
Her hobbies were natural history and archaeology, and whatever books shewanted on these subjects were bought for her. From the very beginning, anyinformation she could obtain concerning the Stone Age drew her like a magnet.She disliked dolls, adored animals, and preferred trees and flowers to thesociety of other children.
At eleven she began to write verses. A year later her family moved toFeatherstone, a tiny bush township in the North Island, and here for fiveyears she ran wild, riding unbroken colts, shooting, learning to swim insnow-fed creeks, and going for long, solitary rambles of exploration throughthe virgin bush.
It was here in the thick scrub, where there was always the risk ofencountering wild cattle or a wild boar, that what she describes as "memoriesof the Stone Age" came to her. And so, when the newly-startedLoneHand magazine startled Australasia by offering a prize of 25 pounds forthe best short story submitted to it, Dulcie Deamer, then 16, sent along herfirst serious prose effort— a story of the savage love of a cave-man.It won—and altered the whole course of her life.
For some years previously her parents had been training her for a stagecareer. This original idea was not abandoned. At 17 Dulcie Deamer was touringNew Zealand with a little company playing melodrama in all the back-blocktownships. It was thus she met her future husband, Albert Goldie, who was atthat time business manager for one of Williamson's companies. A whirlwindcourtship ended in a marriage in Perth, Western Australia—the bridebeing not yet 18. Then came a tour of the Far East, with Hugh Ward's LondonComedy Company, which her husband was then managing. Here all manner ofadventures befell the young actress-authoress.
A bomb was thrown into her carriage in the streets of Bombay, whereanti-British rioting had broken out. Luckily it failed to explode. She wascaught in another riot in the Temple of Kali, in Calcutta, and only saved bythe intervention of a Brahmin priest. A fat Bengalese millionaire, hung withnecklaces of pearls the size of broad-beans, nearly succeeded in trapping herinto his harem, and in China she saw execution grounds littered with freshlysevered heads.
These excitements provided material for an Indian novel, which waspublished in New York, which city she visited when she was 21. In themeantime a book of her collected Stone Age stories had been published inSydney, and three sons had been born to her. In the following years shevisited London, Paris, and Rome, and her family had increased to six.
During a second visit to the United States she was involved in strikeriots in the vicinity of Chicago, and had to run for her life from a coupleof bayonet charges, when the military were called out, the strikers havingturned the street cars loose under their own power, and started to wreck thesuburb with torn up paving stones.
Previously to this she had been booked to sail on the ill-fatedTitanic, but had changed her plans at the last moment, and takenpassage on theOlympic, sailing four day sooner. To gain experience onthis voyage she travelled steerage with thirteen hundred immigrants fromevery European country.
She was again in America during the Great War, and witnessed all thefrenzies of Yankee excitement on Armistice Day. Immediately after the warthree of her novels were published in London and NewYork—Revelation,The Street of the Gazelle, andTheDevil's Saint. Her work is strongly coloured with imagination.Revelation andThe Street of the Gazelle deal with Jerusalem inthe time of Christ,The Devil's Saint is a mediaeval romance dealingwith witchcraft and black magic.
Finally she returned to Sydney, which she had for long regarded as "home."Here she settled down to journalism, but by no means had finished withadventures, one of which was a visit to the famous Homebush abattoirs,disguised as a man, for no woman is allowed to witness the actualkilling.
During the last few years a de luxe edition of her short stories (As ItWas in the Beginning) was published in Melbourne, with illustrations byNorman Lindsay, and a volume of her poems (Messalina) has recentlybeen brought out in Sydney. She has now turned her attention to play-writing,her first play being produced last year. She hopes to contribute screenstories to the newly-established Australian film industry. She has written anumber of serials for Australian papers, and is now engaged in a new longnovel, which will be published in Australia by The Endeavour Press towardsthe end of the year.
Vance Palmer
WHEN you begin reading any book or magazine story written byVance Palmer, you may do so with the comfortable feeling that you are goingto be well satisfied when you reach the end. There is nothing erratic abouthis literary work: it is level, flawless, and polished, like a table madefrom Queensland silky oak by a cabinet-maker who takes pride in histrade.
Vance Palmer is an accomplished journeyman—a craftsman in words whohas served his apprenticeship thoroughly, and has mastered his trade, givingyou guaranteed good value for money when you buy what he has made with hispen.
"A typical Vance Palmer four-square yarn" means a story well-constructed,written with care, and no loose ends in the plot, and no slovenly phrasing.His name on a book is a trade-mark that you can trust.
Discussion of the major Australian novelists of today invariably beginswith the brilliant constellation of women writers who have come to the forein recent years. Henry Handel Richardson, Brent of Bin Bin, KatherinePrichard, Velia Ercole, Barnet Eldershaw, G. B. Lancaster, Alice Rosman,Helen Simpson—a surprisingly strong list of Australian writers to beginwith, all known and respected in England and America—and all women!
The discussion turns to men writers. Invariably someone says, "Well, thereis Vance Palmer..." His name comes first to mind. With Dale Collins and JackMcLaren he has presented the Australian theme to English and American readersin a certain virile, straightforward, sincere, and unassuming way that lacksthe wild emotional force of the woman writers, but is no less convincing andgenuinely Australian for that. Here is the Australian male inliterature—modest, but capable and full of a quiet strength, as he isin life.
Like the "Champion Ringers" famed in Western shearing sheds, Vance Palmercomes from Queensland. He was born in Bundaberg, the sugar-town at the mouthof the Burnett River. In his early and impressionable youth he must have seenthe picturesque gangs of Kanakas cutting the tall green cane and singingtheir deep-voiced Island songs as they flashed the broad cane-knives in thesunlight. He would have seen, too, the white labourers, the roughest-manneredbut physically the most perfect specimens of masculinity to be found anywhereon the earth, arriving at the cane-fields after shearing-sheds were cut outfor a few months' big pay and desperately hard work, "cane-slogging."
Perhaps he saw fights and riots between Kanakas and white labourers, orwatched great muscled timber-fellers, striped to the waist, sweating in thesun as they cleared the jungle from the Isis scrublands, revealing the richred volcanic loam wherein more and more sugarcane was to be planted. Perhaps,too, he went to the "Sand Hills", where the Burnett River flows out to theocean, and watched the gulls planing over the dunes where another youngnative of Bundaberg, Bert Hinkler, made and flew box-kites the size ofaeroplanes even before the triumphs of Wilbur Wright and Blériot; and nodoubt in the Burnett River young Palmer caught ceratodi— the archaicfish that can live out of water, and are found only in that stream.
Colour, strength, romance, during the impressionable age of childhood gavehim a background for his writing which he has never lost, for all his latersophistication and urbanity, and world-travelling, and painfully acquired"literariness." Asked recently to express an opinion on Australia as aliterary theme, Palmer replied:
"A man can only write about the life he knows. If he is an Australian hewill naturally take his themes from his own country. I have written countlessmagazine stories set in places as far apart as China and Mexico, but Iwouldn't attempt any serious work set in those countries—they don'tstimulate my deepest interest. Australia can provide all the themes requiredby any writer who knows his country."
There is a brave and heartening declaration from one who has travelled allthe world, and proved himself a master of the literary trade! Vance Palmerhas been four times to London on literary business, and once on the businessof the A.I.F. He spent a year travelling through Russia and Siberia, in thedays before the revolution, incidentally learning much about his job ofwriting from the works of the great Russian masters, Tolstoy, Gorky,Dostoevsky, Pushkin— all geniuses of narrative style and psychologicalinsight.
He has sojourned in the colourful East and has lived through theuncertainties, terrors, and comedy of a revolution in Mexico. Yet always hehas returned to Australia, and in his serious work it is always of Australiathat he writes.
His early days in Bundaberg, and at the Ipswich Grammar School(Queenslands "Athens"), the days which he spent as a jackaroo on a WesternQueensland cattle station, and what he noticed when living on the edge of thecrashing surf at Caloundra, near Brisbane, or during the year which he spentrecently on Green Island, near Cairns, on the Barrier Reef— theseessentially Australian experiences have given him, and will continue to givehim, the inspiration for his best work.
His books, like those of all the best Australian authors, are difficult orimpossible to obtain from Australian booksellers, who will offer you,instead, English "throw-out" lines if you ask for decent reading matter.
Something will be done about this, no doubt, when Australian publishinggets firmly established. The best of Vance Palmer's novels, all recentlypublished in England, areThe Man Hamilton (1928),Men AreHuman (1930),The Passage (1930). andDaybreak.Men AreHuman andThe Passage wereBulletin prize-winners.
A collection of his short-stories, entitledSeparate Lives, waspublished In 1931; and a book of plays entitledThe Black Horse wasissued in 1924.
He is one of the foremost of the gallant band who are endeavouring toconvince the Australian public that Australia as a country is interesting toread about.
"It will probably take a lot of writing, of the highest class." he says,"'to convince Australians that their life is as interesting as anyother."
Vance Palmer's work is of the "highest class," and we are proud of him forthat reason.
Frank Dalby Davison
MANY young Australian writers, desperate at the lack ofbook-publishing facilities in Australia, have gone abroad, to seek publishersin England or America and, having found publishers they have stayed away fromthis country—for their own good. Why should an author remain inAustralia, to be treated with indifference by his own people, they say, whenfame and recognition are to be had in London or New York?
Such an export of talent is a loss to Australia. We can only admire thosewho have remained here to pioneer Australian Literature as their fatherspioneered the economic resources of this vast and uncultivated continent.
Frank Dalby Davison is one of the young Australians, of a new generationof writers, who is determined to make his literary home amongst his ownpeople. Unable to find a publisher for his first two books,Man-ShyandForever Morning, he had them printed and published privately,encouraged and assisted by his father, Mr. Fred. Davison, a Sydney estateagent, who is also possessed of strong literary gifts and is a soundcritic.
Compared with the finished-looking products of professional publishers,young Davison's books were crudely printed and bound, and looked amateurishin the extreme. One blushed to think that such poor-looking books wererepresentative of Australian literature.
But readers of the books had a pleasant surprise in store. In Frank DalbyDavison's books discerning readers saw the power and fluency and word-controlthat marks the great writer. A new star had risen in the Australian literaryfirmament.
The first editions were eagerly bought up.Man-Shy was awarded theAustralian Literature Society's Gold Medal for the best Australian novelpublished in 1931. Angus and Robertson, Ltd., of Sydney, republished thebooks in proper professional style. Frank Dalby Davison had "arrived."
The first two novels both dealt with men and cattle in the Australianbush.Man-Shy tells of the herds of wild cattle ("scrubbers") thatranged in the mountains beyond the boundaries of a cattle-station on theMaranoa, in Queensland. They were like a "phantom herd" that had been inexistence for sixty years:
"Theirs was a life for the brute slaves of man to dream of. Their hideshad never known the searing whip, or the sting of the branding iron; nor didthe shadow of the slaughterhouse fall across their years. Companions of thewilderness creatures—the emu, the dingo, and the kangaroo— theirlife was the life of dumb brutes as it was on earth in the beginning. Theywere free as the winds that played about their mountains; free as the rainsthat swept up the gorges; and as free as the range itself, hoisting itstimber-crested palisades into the blue. They lived secure and content in thesimple wisdom the Creator has given to dumb things."
In every paragraph of this remarkable Australian story the author buildsup in simple, but unforgettable imagery, the life of the wild herd. Hissimiles are drawn directly from nature:
"The narrow paths along which they passed in single filefrom one feeding ground to another lay in the mountains like the webbed veinsin the back of a leaf. The observation of the bushland never errs."
The author has not drawn upon his imagination, but on his knowledge, inwriting such passages as, for example, the following description of a fightbetween two bulls:
"Prelude to battle was observed with due ceremony. Eyeingeach other from a distance of about forty yards, each roared his contempt atthe other. Each stroked the ground with a challenging forefoot, flinging thedust back along his flanks. They walked a few paces towards each other, andpaused. Their battle-cry was a succession of throaty grumbles, each pitchedabout a tone higher than the preceding one; each followed by a sobbing intakeof the breath; and the last one ending in a blast that threatenedannihilation. With short, measured steps they again moved towards each other,heads lowering to engage."
A quick eye! That is precisely what Davison himself possesses, and it is theessential qualification for a writer. Things seen and noted, simply andgraphically told— such is the material of all great art. Like thepainter of pictures in oils, the writer, who is a painter of pictures inwords, must trust his eye, and use his eye, before he begins to use his pen.Frank Davison understands this. He has looked closely at Australia beforebeginning to write about it. He has looked through his own eyes and notthrough the spectacles kindly provided for our use by English, and othervisitors, to this country. That is why the work of Frank Dalby Davison is aportent for the future of the Australian novel. Only one otherwriter—Miles Franklin—has written so directly and with suchsurely-observed knowledge of horses and cattle in the Australian scene. Thisis real Australia, one feels, not the romantic Australia of "bookish"writers.
Frank Davison's future work will be watched with great interest by thosewho look forward to a powerful Australian literature, strong-rooted in thesoil.
"I am Australian by birth and by conviction," he has stated.
It will be interesting to see whether he can write of the Australian bushin a manner interesting to people who live abroad, as Vance Palmer has doneinThe Passage, and Katherine Pritchard inWorkingBullocks.
But he is more likely to succeed if he writes for his own people first.Angus and Robertson have just published a new story of his entitledTheWells of Beersheba, which deals with the Australian Light Horse, inPalestine. This book is not a novel, but a long "short-story" in book form,intended as a Gift Book. Frank Dalby Davison is an Australian writer wellworth watching.
Ambrose Pratt
AMBROSE PRATT is one of the most prolific and successful ofAustralian authors. The list of his published works is a surprisingrevelation of energy in the literary field. More than twenty of his novelshave been issued, in England and America, as well as in foreign translations,by firms of such high repute as Hutchinson, Grant Richards, Ward Lock, Dent,and Cassell. Many of these works have reached Australia, in small quantitiesonly, or perhaps not at all—a state of affairs distinctlyunsatisfactory to Australian authors, but alas, all too usual in thepast.
Great as Ambrose Pratt's reputation in Australia is at the present time,it would be much greater if his numerous books published abroad had beenproperly distributed by the Australian booksellers, instead of being allowedto go out of print, and become unobtainable.
Besides twenty novels, Ambrose Pratt is the author of two very notableAustralian biographies.Three Years with Thunderbolt is a classicstory of bnshranging days, vividly written. Published both in England andAustralia, it has had a big sale. A more substantial biography is that ofDavid Syme, the celebrated Melbourne journalist-proprietor, described as thefather of "Protection in Australia." This book is regarded as one of the bestAustralian political biographies ever written.
Two books of travel,The Real South Africa andMagicalMalaya, and two books on economics,The Elements of ConstructiveEconomies and theThe Australian Tariff Handbook, show the wideintellectual range of Ambrose Pratt's mind, and the fine facility of hispen.
Born at Forbes, NSW, Mr. Pratt was educated at the Sydney Grammar Schooland Sydney University. He then travelled extensively in Europe, Asia andAfrica. Returning to Sydney, he practised as a solicitor for ten years,before joining the editorial staff of the MelbourneAge. After tenyears in this capacity, he became editor and part proprietor ofTheIndustrial Australian.
At present he is living in Melbourne, engaged in commerce as a companydirector, interested mainly in tin-dredging and gold-mining. He has alwaysbeen a keen student of the life and habits of our unique Australian animals.This year he is President of the Royal Zoological Society of Victoria, and hehas signalised his tenure of this important position by writing a book whichwill arouse interest not only throughout Australia but throughout theworld.
The Lore of the Lyrebird, to be published shortly by The EndeavourPress, describes very fully the habits and characteristics of one of the mostbeautiful and rare and certainly the most intelligent of the world's wildcreatures—the lyrebird.
Mr. Pratt, with other Victorian naturalists, has made a special study ofthis glorious creature—a bird so shy that little was known of itpreviously. The friendship of a wild male lyrebird with a widowed lady namedMrs. Wilkinson, of Sherbrooke Gully, was the "Miracle of the Dandenongs" thatenabled these observations to be made. Numerous photographs accompany thegracefully-written text, to which Sir Colin Mackenzie has contributed aforeword.The Lore of the Lyrebird at last clears up the mystery of"Australia's avian aristocrat."
Mr. Ambrose Pratt thus crowns a lifetime of fine literary achievement witha book which will be a wonderful advertisement of one of the most beautifulforms of life in Australia of which the world has hitherto known little, ornothing at all.
Mr. Pratt's new book is a splendid example of the value to this nation ofencouraging its own writers. Only the writer can tell the world what awonderful country Australia really is.
Aidan de Brune at Esperance, W.A., during his epic walkaround Australia.
AIDAN DE BRUNE was the pseudonym of Herbert Charles Cull,who was born in London in 1874. He married Ethel Crofts in 1907 and in 1909 a son, Lionel, was born. In 1910 he came to Australia, arriving in Fremantle, Western Australia, in May. His wife and child followed, arriving in Albany, Western Australia, in November 1910. His arrival document gave his occupation as "Printer."In October 1912 his wife and son returned to England. Herbert Cull remained in Australia for the rest of his life. By 1917 he was living in West Perth; a year or so later in the small coastal port of Bunbury, south of Perth.
By then he was using variations of the names Herbert Charles Frank deBroune Culle, and working for theBunbury Herald newspaper. Here waspublished his first identifiable serial:The Pursuits of Peter Pell,an episodic novel in 12 parts, set in Perth. The author was 'Frank deBroune'. Another serial by 'Frank de Broune',The Nine Stars Mystery,began in theHerald on 28 May 1920 but was left unfinished,terminating abruptly on 5 November. The style of this unfinished novel isunmistakably Aidan de Brune's.
On 24 November 1920, he set out to walk from Fremantle to Sydney, on theopposite side of the continent, using the name Aidan de Broune. He claimed itwas for a wager. Ninety days later he arrived in Sydney, having crossed thewaterless and treeless Nullarbor Plain in high summer. He followed theTrans-Australia Railway Line, moving from fettlers' camp to fettlers' camp.The experience gave him meterial for a short story "Just a Woolly" (1922),which may, indirectly, offer an explanation of why he quit Bunbury and hisjob, and an unfinished serial.
In Sydney his name became fixed as Aidan de Brune, and he made a deal withthe newly foundedSydney Mail. He would walk all the way aroundAustralia, more than 10,000 miles, and theMail would publish hisarticles on his walk. Thus, instead of becoming one of the many unemployedswagmen of the era, he had the higher status of employed reporter on aprofessional mission. This amazing walk, the first in Australia's history,took more than two years. It naturally included crossing the Nullarbor asecond time, this time along the coastal route of the overland Telegraph Linevia Eucla. By the time it was over, he was a celebrity.
Back in Sydney, de Brune embarked on a career as writer of newspaperserials. Such serials had been a staple of Australian newspapers, speciallyrural newspapers, for many years. First, however, he published a hardbacknovel,The Carson Loan Mystery, in 1926, which was not a serial. Thenthe serial flood began; he turned out three full length serial novels a yearat his peak. Several of them were also published in New Zealand newspapers.He also used another pen-name, John Morriss, for some of his output.
By 1936 the flood of serials was over, and de Brune evidently retired fromhis literary career, aged 62. He died in a nursing home in 1946, a few monthsshort of his 72nd birthday.
After his death, the works of Aidan de Brune disappeared into obscurity,although occasionally one of his rare books can still be found for sale.
In 2017 he was rediscovered by Terry Walker, an inveterate trawler of theAustralian National Library's on-line newspaper resource TROVE, when hespotted de Brune's "autobiography" in the Australian Authors series. Thisincluded a list of his titles up to 1933. Once Gutenberg Australia and RoyGlashan's Library, both publishers of free e-books in the Australian publicdomain, became interested, the entire fiction output was rescued, sometimeswith difficulty, from TROVE and from library sources. This also led to thediscovery of De Brune's notebooks from his epic walk around Australia,together with a typed up book of the diary entries, held in the MitchellLibrary in N.S.W., to be made available as an e-book with his otherworks.
The real identity of Aidan de Brune was uncovered when Project GutenbergAustralia's Colin Choat found an item in a 1938 issue of Sydney'sLaborDaily, (successor to theMail). N.S.W. police had received anenquiry forwarded from the Western Australian police. De Brune's wife inEngland was asking for information about her husband Herbert Charles Cull,last heard of in Perth Western Australia in 1913. TheLabor Dailystaff identified him promptly as Aidan de Brune, who had recently been seenwalking his dog in a Sydney city park. No doubt this was passed to the N.S.W.police who advised the WA police, and a discreet silence then reigned.
The identity was further confirmed when two items in theBunburyHerald were unearthed. The first was about "de Broune's" walk to Sydney;the second about de Brune as he approached Perth on his Great Walk. They bothidentified him with the Bunbury name better known toHerald readers as"de Broune" Culle. Research in genealogical resources confirmed all thebiographic data given in this short profile. His son Lionel Charles Culllater migrated to Western Australia.
For such a short fiction writing career, de Brune's output wasconsiderable: 19 novel-length works, one published exclusively in book form,seventeen as serials, and one as an unfinished serial; two novelettespublished as serials; and 15 known short stories. Included in this output wasa trilogy which increasingly evolved into fantasy, featuring Dr. Night, adrab and colourless little man with a central Asian background, using diverseschemes to fund the rebuilding of a long defunct kingdom of which he is theheir:Dr Night (1926),The Green Pearl (1930), andWhispering Death (1931).
Other serials not mentioned above are:The Phantom Launch (1927),The Dagger and Cord (1927),The Shadow Crook (1929),TheLittle Grey Woman (1929),The League of Five (1930);TheUnlawful Adventure (1930),Douchard's Island (novelette, 1931),The Mystery of Madlands (1931),Find This Man (1931),TheGrays Manor Mystery (1932),The Three Snails (novelette, 1932),The Kahm Syndicate (1934),The Flirting Fool (1934),Cain (1934; by John Morriss; republished in 1938 as The Framing ofInspector Denvers by Aidan de Brune);The Fortune-Telling House(1935), andSaul and the Spinster (1935).
The Grays Manor Mystery and the abortedNine Stars Mystery(1920) were set in England.Douchard's Island seems to be set in NorthQueensland.The Pursuits of Peter Pell is set in Western Australia.The rest were set in and around Sydney.
With the exception of the aborted, incompleteThe Nine StarsMystery, all of his serials have been recovered, along with some fifteenshort stories. They are being made available progressively as free e-books byGutenberg Australia and Roy Glashan's Library.
(Earliest publication date identified, using date of firstinstalment in case of serials)
Novels but not serials
1926 The Carson Loan Mystery
Novel-length newspaper serials
1920 The Pursuits of Peter Pell
1920 The Nine Stars Mystery (unfinished)
1926 Dr Night
1927 The Phantom Launch
1927 The Dagger and Cord (The Lonely Lady)
1929 The Shadow Crook
1929 The Little Grey Woman
1930 The Green Pearl
1930 The League of Five
1930 The Unlawful Adventure
1931 Whispering Death
1931 The Mystery of Madlands (The Murders at Madlands)
1931 Find This Man
1932 The Grays Manor Mystery
1934 The Kahm Syndicate
1934 The Flirting Fool (also as by John Morriss)
1934 Cain (Macleay Argus, by John Morriss) also as "The Framing of InspectorDenvers" by Aidan de Brune
1935 Saul and the Spinster
1935 The Fortune-Telling House
Novelette newspaper serials
1931 Douchard's Island (30,000 words)
1932 The Three Snails (24,000 words)
Short Stories
1922 Just a Woolly
1927 Who Killed David Condon?
1927 Adelbert Cay
1928 Meet Mary Cronig
1928 Mary Quite Contrary
1928 The Marrickville Murders
1929 The Empty Match Box
1930 Whiteface
1930 Mary's Little Lamb
1931 Voodoo Vengeance*
1931 Five Minute Murder
1932 Silver Bells
1933 Mary's Fleece
1933 The Three Cats (by John Morriss)
* Original title" 'All The Mystery of African Jungles Brought the Vengeance ofthe Voodoo to Jewel Thief.'(!)
Short Story Collection
2017 Meet Mary Cronig and Other Stories (contains all the short storiesabove)
Non-Fiction
1928 Fifty Years of Progress in Australia (Editor) *
1933 Ten Australian Authors
*Available on-line at hathitrust.org. Not written by de Brune. A corporatepublication of a mutual provident society celebrating its own 50th year ofprogress, and written by numerous unidentified authors.
This site is full of FREE ebooks -Project Gutenberg Australia