Dora Birtles | |
|---|---|
 Dora Birtles, c.1946 | |
| Born | Dora Eileen Toll (1903-04-02)2 April 1903 Wickham, New South Wales, Australia |
| Died | 27 January 1992(1992-01-27) (aged 88) Cobar, New South Wales, Australia |
| Occupation | novelist, short-story writer, poet and travel writer |
| Education | University of Sydney |
| Partner | Bert Birtles |
| Children | 2 sons |
Dora Birtles (née Toll; 1904[1]–1992), was an Australian novelist, short-story writer, poet and travel writer.[2]
Dora Toll was born in 1903 inWickham, New South Wales, a suburb ofNewcastle, the sixth daughter ofAlbert Frederick Toll and Hannah (née Roberts).[3] She was ahead of her time in studying at theUniversity of Sydney in a period when few women received a tertiary education. However, she was suspended in 1923 for a poem appearing in the literary magazineHermes, which describes post-coital bliss.[4] Her future husband, poet and journalistBert Birtles, was expelled for a still more explicit poem in the same issue ofHermes describing their tryst on the roof of the university quadrangle.[5][6][7]
Dora Birtles returned to Sydney University to take a degree in Oriental history and a diploma of education,[3] and then taught inNewcastle, New South Wales for a short time before travelling to Europe. Before theSecond World War she was a member of the International Women's League Against War and Fascism and reported for theNewcastle Sun.[8]
Birtles was the subject of a finalist portrait for theArchibald Prize of 1947, by Dora Toovey.[9]
Dora Birtles died inCobar, New South Wales, on 27 January 1992 aged 88.[10]
Birtles' first novel,Pioneer Shack was for children. It had been written in the 1930s but did not appear until 1947, after the publication of a novel for adults,The Overlanders (1946), which was based on the1946 film of the same name for which she had been a researcher.[11][12] Birtles wrote an account of a sea voyage from Newcastle toSingapore,North-West by North (1935) which became one of her most popular works. She also wrote another children's novel,Bonza the Bull (1949). Her work has been the subject offeminist literary criticism.[13][14]
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| People | |
| Other | |
